Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero (56 page)

“What’s that?” Jonathan asked.

“They are incapable of hurting their own species,” Heyer said. “They do not fight among themselves; violence is reserved only for their enemies and their mating requirements. They will never have a civil war or a squabble over resources, they have no countries. They live in tribe-like communities but if one member moves from one tribe to another they are immediately accepted. My brother, having watched our civilization destroy itself, found comfort in integrating with such beings. After thousands of years with the Ferox, he has come to love them much the same way I’ve come to love mankind.”

“I guess,” Jonathan paused. “I guess I can understand that.”

“The current problem we now face is quite simply this, Jonathan,” Heyer began. “The planet of the Ferox can no longer sustain their reproductive traits. My brother and I, though we come from an advanced civilization, are not scientists. What we know we have learned from our libraries and years of study. But there was never a well-educated member of our species to teach us, so our knowledge is highly fragmented. We do not possess the means necessary to fix the Ferox.”

Heyer let this information stew for a moment.

“Unfortunately, my brother will stop at nothing to save them. I have tried to negotiate with him; I’ve asked him to let the species run its course. Unfortunately, he is completely willing to sacrifice earth to have the species for which he identifies survive.”

Heyer was pacing now.

“I had to strike a bargain with my brother to preserve earth as unharmed as possible. What we have now is a balance. A fair confrontation, as fair as we can make it, where certain humans are given the necessary enhancement to fight the Ferox for their lives. One at a time, in a controlled setting that does not disrupt the majority of life on earth. He has agreed, only because I am his brother and this is my home, to maintain the Ferox population at a stable minimum. Only enough to ensure the species can persist. This is all to buy time as he searches for the solution to the mating problem. You have to understand, this was the best I could arrange for mankind.”

Jonathan was thinking intensely.

“Your bastard brother is playing cross-dimensional ecology? I am fighting for my life because he wants to save an endangered species of monsters that your civilization corrupted forever ago! I am just buying time, by giving them a damn combatant to fulfill their reproductive rituals.”

“Malkier could have opened doors into this world and let the Ferox loose on the planet. Your way of life would have been destroyed. Your military would have been in constant combat with these creatures, thousands would have died, and that would only be the beginning. Mankind was to be enslaved, bred in camps, devices such as the one in your chest forced on the males so they could present a challenge to the Ferox in an arena. All so the Ferox could persist.

“This was the only solution I could come to with him to preserve both planets existence. To ensure the fewest casualties on earth for a fight that was never its responsibility.”

Jonathan hated every word of what he was hearing. He was a sacrifice. He was fighting for no one but himself after all.

Things made sense now. This was why Heyer said the creature valued him, because he was a resource it needed for its species to survive. It was like a hunter thanking a deer he was about to eat for its meat. That was why it was instinctual to stack the bodies. They kept a count of their own kills. They worked themselves up into some type of combat based mating frenzy and presented their kills to their females. Jonathan realized then that this still couldn’t work. It didn’t make sense, Heyer was leaving something out.

“Wait!” Jonathan said angrily. “Heyer, even if I died and the creature took my body to the Ferox planet. It would only allow for one male to mate. That couldn’t possibly sustain the entire Ferox species. You’d need a lot more. Hundreds of people like me.”

Heyer hung his head.

“Jonathan, there is a reason I am constantly moving all over the globe,” Heyer paused and stopped pacing. “You are not the only combatant in play.”

Jonathan’s image of reality was shattered again.

“When a Ferox is allowed access to one of the gates to earth,” Heyer paused, “It hits a network of possible nodes where it will find a combatant, most in major cities. The nodes are targeted to those with the device implanted, the Ferox arrives in close proximity to the individual it will fight.”

That explained why the beast would show up within a ten mile radius of his house. It wasn’t his house at all; it was him.

“How many of us are there?”

Heyer looked away.

"The number fluctuates,” he said. “Few men are the victors, and those that are aren’t for long. The nodes often need to be replenished.”

Jonathan nodded angrily.

“This is so much worse than I feared. I thought you knew what you were doing. I thought I was fighting for earth. I knew you’d tell me the odds were against us, but I trusted that you had a plan!”

Heyer saw the look of betrayal on Jonathan’s face. It clearly hurt him to see, and Jonathan didn’t care.

“You’re right you know. I shouldn’t have asked. What the hell is the point?” Jonathan said as he angrily paced the garage. “That’s all I was that night you came looking for me, that night you put this thing into my chest. You were replenishing a node, refilling a damn bird feeder.”

“No, Jonathan,” Heyer said. “Please don’t see it as such.”

“How in the hell am I supposed to see it?” Jonathan asked. “It doesn’t matter what I do, how prepared I am, how vicious I become. It’s just a matter of time.”

“If you were nothing more than a sacrifice to the Ferox, if you were nothing but a reinforcement, I never would have activated you!” Heyer said, raising his voice.

Jonathan, still looking for a string of hope in all this terrible news, tried to reign in his growing rage at the sound of Heyer’s yelling.

“Jonathan,” Heyer said, “I do have a plan. I just can’t accomplish it on my own. I needed help.”

Jonathan felt like he was on the park bench again, desperate for the alien to help him, desperate to know things weren’t impossible, that he wouldn’t leave him with nothing but a void of inevitability that couldn’t be filled.

“You remember what you said, Jonathan?” Heyer asked. “That if man found themselves in a similar predicament, it would lead to the most violent rebellion in human-kinds history.”

Jonathan stopped pacing.

“The Ferox are at the brink of extinction. My brother, he lives amongst them as one of their Alpha leaders. They do not know that he is not of their species. He is the only one who can allow them access to the gates they require to get to earth and bring back their trophies. They saw him as the great leader, the one who found the way to spare them, but the tides are shifting and he doesn’t want to see it. The youth of the species are beginning to challenge his leadership.”

“They’re going to turn on him,” Jonathan said.

“The moment of rebellion is not far off. When that time comes, he will give them complete control of the gates to appease them. If they discover he is not of their species, they will kill him and take control of the gates in the process. Either way, mankind is in trouble, and we need—”

“You couldn’t kill him,” Jonathan interrupted. “You couldn’t just dismantle the gates and do away with your brother.”

It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of comprehension. Insight into the alien had struck Jonathan so suddenly, he just blurted out the words as they came to him. He saw so clearly now what had led Heyer and mankind to this terrible point.

Heyer took a long breath.

“My brother’s madness was too sympathetic, Jonathan. I can’t say what I would do to save man if they were going extinct. It all seems so easy, I know, but if your Mother was about to commit some atrocity, and you were given the option of stalling her in the hopes that you could find a solution, don’t you think you would have tried to save her life first?”

“I don’t know what I would do, Heyer,” Jonathan said. “I can admit that much.”

Heyer seemed to relax at this. He was plainly defensive over the life of his brother and the decisions he’d made to preserve it.

“I believe now,” Heyer said, “that it may not be my choice any longer.”

“You had a chance once didn’t you?” Jonathan asked. “You sympathized with him, and you couldn’t kill him. I spent all this time thinking that you kept me in the dark because you didn’t want the government cell knowing what you were up to. That was really only half of it though, wasn’t it? You didn’t want me to know the truth about the Ferox. You were afraid I’d hesitate, like you did. You were afraid it would get me killed.”

“It’s painful to kill the enemy you understand, to make a villain of the desperate. I feared endangering your life if I gave you any sympathy for the Ferox. It only would have made it harder to do what you inevitably must.”

They sat for a while then. Jonathan still trying to make all the pieces fit in his head, still trying to see what plan the alien could possibly have in the midst of such a complicated mess. Heyer, too, seemed caught up in his own thoughts. When they both seemed ready, Jonathan asked the question.

“Heyer,” he said, “you said you had a plan. Please tell me there is a light at the end of this tunnel.”

The alien nodded.

“I activated you, Jonathan. I have had your name in the registry of compatible subjects for years. You could be the strongest combatant they’ve ever faced,” Heyer said, “but physical reasons aside; strength alone does not make a General.”

“What?” Jonathan asked.

“Many die in their first confrontation with the Ferox,” Heyer said. “But some are like you, Jonathan. They refuse to lie down. I have been activating those amongst mankind with the higher compatibilities to their devices. The most likely to win. I have been increasing their numbers slowly as to not raise the Ferox loss rate too noticeably. I have done this, because a war will soon be upon us. If we wish to contain it, we will need an army. That army will need a leader. That leader will have to be human.”

“You want me to lead an army?” Jonathan asked, “I don’t know the first thing about leading.”

“I activated you now to give you the time to become the man we’ll need you to be,” Heyer said. “I told you I did my best to follow my moral compass, but I can’t shoulder this alone. I need a voice from your species. I need someone who knows what we are up against and understands what will be required to stop extermination. I need someone who can tell me when I’ve lost my way. I chose you to be my compass, because I know you will not abandon mankind to fate, not at any cost.”

Jonathan felt sick.

He found his legs wouldn’t hold him. He sat on the bench, afraid to hear anything more the alien had to say.

“There must be someone else, there must be someone who wants this, someone experienced in war. I’ve never led anyone; I’m twenty-two…” Jonathan trailed off. The number of reasons the alien had to be wrong about this decision were too numerous to bother listing.

Heyer nodded at Jonathan’s reasoning.

“I have not voted in a human presidential election for quite some time, Jonathan. Admittedly, it may not be my place. Still, do you know what really stops me from selecting a candidate?”

Jonathan listened but mostly focused on containing his nausea.

“It’s a paradox, I know. It just seems that anyone smart enough to know the responsibility of such a seat of power would never be dumb enough to apply for it. I only trust a man with power when he is wise enough not to want it.”

Jonathan felt like climbing into himself.

“Dams the Gate,” Jonathan whispered, “that was the name the Ferox gave. Seems like more than a name now, seems like a sick joke.”

Heyer became so silent then. Jonathan, looking up to him, thought perhaps he, too, needed to sit down. Instead, the alien seemed to be blinking at him like he was in shock, like he had just been hit with a tranquilizer dart and wasn’t quite sure what was happening.

“Jonathan, are you absolutely sure that was the name the Ferox gave?” Heyer asked.

“I’ll never forget that name,” Jonathan said.

Heyer stepped forward, still seemingly caught up in his own thoughts, and placed a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder.

“I think we’ve discussed enough tonight, Jonathan,” Heyer said. “I have to go. I will see you again, once you’ve had enough time to process all this. Stay diligent in your training.”

“Heyer, why are you—”

The alien was gone before he finished.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

WEDNESDAY | SEPTEMBER 7, 2005 | 8:00 PM

HOURS
had passed in the garage before Jonathan had come to grips with enough of what he had been told to walk into the house. Until then, he’d just sat, thinking over every revelation, clinging to the small threads of hope the alien seemed to have. He was more afraid of the future than he’d ever been.

When he finally rose to his feet and walked into the living room, he was surprised to find that everyone was home. Collin and Paige sat at the table. Collin looked cheerful; he was studying of all things, which was odd. Hayden was on the couch, Leah and Jack beside him, he was watching Star Wars again. Jack waved when he entered. He hadn’t expected his neighbors to just be hanging out in his home, but Leah and Paige were friends, so it was probably to be expected now. He was just glad she was there.