The Never Army

by Hodges, T. Ellery

  “Sit?” she asked.

  He obeyed, looking up at her with some uncertainty.

  “I need to ask you things, for myself.”

  He looked at her, nodded, and waited.

  “Do you not want to be bonded to me?”

  “I don’t want to be bonded to anyone,” Jonathan said.

  That he hadn’t needed to consider the question at all, surprised her. “Why?”

  “The bond makes every feeling you have for someone a question. You love them intensely and you don’t know why,” Jonathan said. “Eventually, it doesn’t matter what the truth ever was, you don’t even care about the question . . .”

  “Doesn’t sound so terrible,” Leah said.

  “But when it’s severed—the grief is no different. You don’t get a say in the pain. You lay down and die. Understanding it doesn’t help. The answer to the question, why do I hurt so badly? Doesn’t matter. There is no fighting it.”

  “But . . . you did?”

  He shook his head, his face dead serious.

  “Then—”

  “Please don’t, Leah,” Jonathan said.

  She swallowed. But she hadn’t come here to talk about the broken bond, so she wouldn’t press him on it.

  “Before the bond. Before Rylee. What did you feel for me?” Leah asked.

  “I wanted you very much,” Jonathan said.

  “Did you love me?”

  He closed his eyes and took a long breath. “I . . . wanted to.”

  For a moment, his answer seemed warm. Until she realized that while it felt true, she didn’t know what it meant. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed the vaguest answer to that question she’d ever heard.

  He ‘wanted to’ love her? What did that mean?

  He’d wanted to love her before he found out she’d lied about who she was? He’d wanted to love her but didn’t? He wanted to love her but never got the chance?

  She realized her face had become a frown and stopped herself. “Do you still want to?”

  He seemed to crumble beneath the weight of the question. He reached for her, pulled her close and rested his head against her stomach.

  “I want you to stay.”

  THE QUEUE LOOP | ACTIVATION 22

  With his implant active, he was never truly blind in the dark unless he chose to be. At the moment as he floated above the sea floor, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the quiet.

  He’d read somewhere that the farthest anyone had ever dived was a little more than one thousand feet. He was a bit more than half that. The quiet at such depths was unlike any to be found on the surface—especially as the surface was now . . .

  The submersible beneath him hit the ocean floor with a sudden thump. He opened his eyes to see the nothingness around him.

  Test number two, so far so good.

  He had waited too long to perform the underwater test the first time. The Never deterioration weakened minds far sooner than it did materials but his first submersible’s failure was likely influenced, at least in part, due to the slow crumbling of this reality.

  They had decided to reinforce the inner frame with alien steel wherever the containment shield could handle it, just in case—Mr. Clean dealt with all of that. He had other things to worry over.

  In no hurry to be anywhere now, he took a slow pull from the air tank the AI had provided before going dormant, and stayed on the ocean floor a bit longer. When he was satisfied, he slowly began ascending to the surface. Divers had to worry about decompressing, he suspected his alien enhanced physiology needed less care. He still didn’t rush.

  When he emerged, he treaded water in the Puget Sound. The air smelled of smoke. In the night sky an orange glow emanated over the city.

  Seattle burned.

  When he put off breaking the stone—if he stayed in The Never long enough, the city always burned.

  He knew the queue was running out, he only had six loops left. It would be enough, he would make it enough. Yet, he stared at the sky. Treading water and watching as the city burned. It was pretty from here, if he didn’t let himself think about the why of it. What humanity was doing to itself all over the world right now.

  He left his tank behind and swam for shore. Soon it would be time to start again.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  DAWN WAS FAR from near when she woke beside him. There was no clock, but she could tell morning was still far off. She had fallen asleep with his arm for a pillow. The thought that no good would come from her being seen leaving in the morning made her slip out without waking him.

  She knew she would never get back to sleep, but some cool night air sounded nice. Not many were awake inside Mr. Clean at this hour, but as fate would have it, there was at least one. As Leah quietly shut Jonathan’s door behind her, she turned and looked up to find Paige on the catwalks above.

  When their eyes met, they both seemed equally surprised to be looking at one another. Paige was the first to look away. She turned stiffly, moved to the opposite side of the catwalk, and left Leah staring at her back.

  With a deep breath, Leah shook her head and decided it was time—invited or not, wanted or not—to try. She walked up the stairs, her shoes plenty loud enough for Paige to know she was coming. She hadn’t moved. Leah took a breath, gathered her courage and moved to stand beside her.

  She hadn’t noticed until she stood right beside her, that the ceiling was transparent, as though Paige had asked Mr. Clean for a sunroof to look up at the stars.

  “He’s an idiot to let you anywhere near him,” Paige said, surprising Leah by being the first to speak.

  Leah nodded. Despite all the things Paige didn’t know about the situation—her comment was still fair.

  She waited a bit and watched the stars. Eventually, Paige seemed too uncomfortable in the silence and turned to walk away.

  “His name was Peter,” Leah said, the words bursting out of her.

  Paige stopped, and if Leah didn’t know any better, she thought she heard a groan.

  “He was my brother. I think I would have betrayed the whole damn world if that was what it took. I thought . . . I thought that was what he needed me to do . . . and he was family.”

  Paige slowly turned back to the catwalk. “I know.” There was no venom in her words. “Sometimes I think—I know—I would have done the same. Doesn’t seem to matter. I can’t stop being angry.”

  Leah nodded slowly. It was fair, honest, and the fact that Paige gave that much was more than she’d have hoped for.

  “I don’t know how to fix that,” Leah said. You’ll never hear me say I’m proud of myself. And . . . I miss you terribly. I know it seems like we were only friends because I needed you—but, you were my friend.”

  Paige took a long breath and kept looking up. A long time passed and neither moved. “This place sucks. I hate it here. I feel trapped in a cage with my father. I think he knows it. I think he tries to stay away, but I just . . .”

  She trailed off, and Leah let her. She waited a while before she said anything. “You . . . um . . . you never told me what happened.”

  “What makes you think I would now?”

  “You kinda brought it up,” Leah said. “. . . and you know I can keep a secret.”

  Paige scoffed.

  This was followed by another long silence as they looked up at the stars.

  “Sometimes, I really miss booze,” Leah said.

  Paige quirked her lips and studied her a moment. There was a great deal of unspoken calculation going on behind her eyes for a while. “I know a guy,” she finally said.

  She just walked off, leaving Leah to wonder if she was supposed to follow. When Paige reached the stairs down, she didn’t stop and she didn’t look back.

  “I’m not gonna ask you to come, follow or don’t. I don’t care.”

  Leah blinked, smiled a bit, then ran to catch up.

  There was not supposed to be any drugs or alcohol in Hangman’s Tree. While one of Jonathan’s most unpop
ular directives, the reasons weren’t exactly baseless. The majority of this army was made up of people who had been isolated and forced to cope with stresses no average individual could imagine. Understandably, people did so in different ways. More than a few amongst them were going through withdrawals of one kind or another. The Doc was good at spotting the signs as they came in.

  Jonathan was trying to do them all a favor—cold turkey was easier when there wasn’t any other choice.

  Paige was not the only one who didn’t love the rule, especially under the current circumstances. As Leah followed Paige down the catwalks, she let slip that Jonathan’s judgment was probably best in the short-term.

  “His judgment? I just caught him sleeping with the enemy,” Paige said. She smiled then, as though something funny had occurred to her. “Ironic, you know, because between the two of you, you're the one who actually bears the closest resemblance to Julia Roberts . . .”

  Leah was about to point out that, despite appearances, she hadn’t actually been sleeping with Jonathan outside the literal sense, but she settled for a sardonic grin before Paige began knocking on a door.

  Leah stepped aside when the door swung open, not wanting Paige to be caught with her. She listened quietly.

  Turned out—Paige did know a guy.

  Jonathan’s plan required special project teams that had to leave Hangman’s Tree for various reconnaissance operations. The truth was, being on his war council, Paige and Leah knew more about why this man was being sent out than he did—but of course, he had no idea of that. Being an Army brat growing up, Paige seemed to possess an uncanny knack for ferreting out the sort of folks who would be holding contraband.

  When the door shut and Paige held up a flask, they felt a bit like teenagers sneaking bottles out of their parent’s liquor cabinet.

  “I know where to go,” Leah said, making her contribution to tonight’s escapade. She took Paige to the one place she knew only Mr. Clean could find them.

  They had to go up a number of flights of stairs, and at the end, Mr. Clean formed a final staircase upon her arrival. “When no one trusts you, you start looking for places where you won’t be in anyone’s way. Mr. Clean lets me up here.”

  “Speaking of,” Paige said. “Mr. Clean, you know I love you, but no one needs to be informed of our activities this evening. We are breaking a rule. It’s a victimless crime if no one knows. We appreciate your discretion.”

  The AI didn’t reply, but the door hatch still opened.

  “Yeah, he’s definitely gonna narc on us,” Leah said, as the hatch shut quietly behind them.

  “You’ve been holding out. I didn’t know this place even had roof access,” Paige said as she took a long breath of the cool night air.

  When Leah looked down on where they stood, it appeared to be a forest canopy. The surface was flat, yet the trees that Mr. Clean projected swayed with the wind like all those around them in the forest. It was often hard to tell where Mr. Clean ended and the forest began.

  Paige breathed in the night air, sat down and pulled out the flask. After a sip she held it out to her. Leah looked at it for a moment before sighing. “I can’t.”

  “What . . . this was your idea?”

  “Said I missed booze, I didn’t know you’d be able to get any,” Leah said. “Don’t worry, I’ll just make sure you don’t fall off the roof.”

  Paige considered her, tilted her head skeptically, her eyes narrowing as Leah grew more and more hesitant to meet them.

  “Don’t ask, unless you’re sure you want to know, because I won’t let there be any more lies between us,” Leah said.

  Paige was thoughtful for a while. “Jonathan’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How far along?”

  “Two months, give or take.”

  “He knows?”

  Leah nodded.

  “You’re . . . keeping it?” Paige asked.

  “I want to.”

  Quiet followed. It went on for a few minutes, Paige occasionally taking a sip from the flask.

  “You’re like the worst spy ever,” Paige said with a chuckle.

  The glare Leah turned on her didn’t last long before melting away to laughter.

  “Jeez, you’d think they’d teach it on day one of spy school,” Paige cleared her throat. “Ladies, this is important, don’t get impregnated by your targets.”

  “They probably just assume it goes without saying,” Leah said.

  “Well, you showed them,” Paige said.

  They laughed until it began to feel familiar. Well, until they made the mistake of noticing how familiar. Then it grew quiet again, and they listened to the wind blowing through the trees.

  “I suppose Jonathan is not a complete idiot then,” Paige said. “I mean if he knew it was his.”

  “You don’t have to say it . . . It’s a boy,” Leah said. “Mr. Clean told me.”

  “Aww,” Paige said. “A mini Tibbs.”

  “Yeah,” Leah said, starting to wonder if whatever was in that flask was starting to take hold.

  “Do you love him?” Paige asked.

  The question was abrupt. As though Paige had smashed a pile of dishes on the floor just to catch her off guard. Leah’s smile disappeared in an instant. Suddenly, she understood exactly why Jonathan had answered that very same question the way he had. “Dammit, I want to.”

  Watching Paige’s reaction was like déjà vu. First, she nodded, only to find herself frowning a moment later. Before she had a chance to say how vague an answer that was, Leah smashed her own pile of dishes.

  “Why do you hate your father so much?”

  Her face darkened, and Paige took another pull off her flask and looked at the night sky.

  “I don’t talk about it. It’s in the past, I don’t like dredging it back up . . . only makes it hurt again. So, you’re getting the short version. My father betrayed me. There was . . .”

  She stopped and was silent a moment, as if gathering her thoughts. Leah waited silently.

  Paige continued matter of factly. “I was seventeen . . . I was raped. The man was under my father’s command. My dad, he asked me to protect the soldier’s career. Were there circumstances? Yes. But, he was my father. The circumstances shouldn’t...”

  She stopped again. Knowing the words and saying them aloud—they weren’t the same thing. She didn’t continue, and she didn’t need to. There was nothing to add.

  A stiff breeze passed through the quiet, and she pulled her legs up to her chest. She rested her chin on her knees.

  Leah had a faraway look in her eyes when she whispered, “I’ll hate him with you.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  THE NEXT MORNING Leah stood in the doorway of Mr. Silva’s quarters. His eyes were red when he answered. “You’re the one they talk about. You were with the people watching my daughter.”

  Not the best start, but Leah didn’t think this was the moment to split hairs. “I . . . I was.”

  “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say,” Mr. Silva said, closing the door.

  Luckily he hadn’t slammed it, because she put her foot between the door and the frame. “Please, it’s about your daughter.”

  His red eyes stared down at her shoe. Any patience quickly hardening into anger. “Do you think I won’t toss you out on your ass?”

  She swallowed. “Rylee asked me the same question before she gave me a black eye—so, no. I know you will.”

  “Then move your foot,” he said.

  “I got her to listen, and I need a minute of your time . . .”

  His red eyes narrowed. “I’ll give you five seconds.”

  “I lost my brother. If there was a chance that I could speak to him again I’d want to hear it,” Leah said.

  They stood in his doorway for an eternity as he digested that and studied her. The reality was probably no more than twenty seconds, but to Leah it felt like being held under a microscope for hours.

  “You better have a
good reason for saying that to me.”

  “If I didn’t have a damn good reason, I wouldn’t have the balls to say anything to you,” Leah said, shivering a bit but holding her ground.

  “That’s a pretty good answer,’ he said. Slowly, the pressure on her foot lessened, and his door opened.

  She stood with him in the Armory. She understood now why Heyer had brought her there as it was the best place to explain and the most private space inside Mr. Clean. Mr. Silva didn’t make any more threats as he began to understand what she wanted from him.

  Rylee’s father studied the small stone resting on the pillar, at odds with the notion that this was once a part of his daughter. The female half of the bonded pair.

  “My daughter’s consciousness is inside this thing . . . and you need me to reach it?”

  Leah nodded gently. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you, you don’t have to answer right away. I unders—”

  “I’ll do it,” he said.

  Her words caught in her throat. She’d expected this to be difficult.

  “You look surprised,” Mr. Silva said. “Did you expect I would disagree?”

  “I didn’t know what to expect,” Leah said. “The question seems too big. I’ve been afraid to ask it.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Silva said with a nod. “Too big is an understatement.”

  Mr. Silva looked as though he were on the verge of tears. It was hard to tell what that meant, as she had never seen him look otherwise—not really. They had never spoken before Mr. Silva learned of his daughter’s death.

  “Since Jonathan told me what happened, I’ve been angry. Angry at everyone. At God. At myself. I know I couldn’t have known, that she couldn’t tell me, that I wouldn’t have believed her. I would have been scared something had gone wrong in her head. I know all this, and I’m still angry that she never tried. Then I’m angry at myself for being so selfish. Then I’m mad at God for letting this happen at all.

  “When I’m too tired to be angry, I’m numb. But . . . that’s all I do now. Sway back and forth between anger and numbness.”

  Leah listened, the silences between his thoughts were not ones she was meant to fill.