Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero (44 page)

After putting the gear away, he headed down to the garage to train. He was halfway across the living room when his roommates stopped him. They’d been watching a movie he didn’t recognize and had paused it when Jonathan entered.

“Jonathan, wait, check this out!” Collin said excitedly, approaching him with his laptop.

On the screen was a comic book cover that showed a mockup of Jesus basking in light from behind and far more muscular than Jonathan remembered ever seeing him. His garb looked more Jedi-like than the robes of a poor carpenter’s son. He held a gnarled staff that appeared to be radiating with some kind of mysterious comic book energy. Jesus’s eyes glowed with light that hid his pupils.

“Wow, is this the cover of the first book?” Jonathan asked.

“Yeah, we’ve got the first three sketched and colored. We’re releasing on the Internet as a digital download, so we don’t have to deal with comic book publishers. We’ve been hyping this up on comic book forums since we thought of it. Got about six more follow up books written, but they aren’t sketched yet. We just need to name the series.

“Let me know if you like any of these,” Hayden said, consulting a list they had on the table.

“Jesus-man, God-Man, or Christ-Man?”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Those are terrible.”

“Man from Heaven? or The Adventures of the Son of God?”

Jonathan attempted to smile but knew it must look forced.

“We need feedback from someone who isn’t heavily into comics,” Hayden explained.

“The New Testament Reloaded?”

“The First Coming?”

Jonathan held a hand up to stop them. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something that works.”

Hayden continued brain storming regardless. “Hey, what if each comic has its own unique subtitle? I mean we can do whatever we want right?”

“So what are you thinking?” Collin asked.

“I want to call the first book
The New Testament Reloaded: Christ Begins,
” Hayden said.

“As the story arc progresses we’ll change the subtitle for each issue then?” Collin said.

“Exactly,” Hayden replied.

Jonathan had walked away, thinking they must now be lost in their creative world again, then noticed their voices were following him into the garage.

His practice staff was leaning against the weight bench. He must have forgotten to put it away the night before. He picked it up, making a mental effort to tune out his roommates as he fell into the motions, warming up.

His grace with the weapon was breathtaking at times. He was deep in his mind, imagining the various attacks he might encounter from a Ferox and implementing a response to them in the real world. He realized, suddenly, that he no longer heard any of the chatter that had followed him into the room. He looked up and saw Hayden and Collin watching him. They didn’t snap out of it until Jonathan had stopped moving and started staring back at them.

“That was amazing, Tibbs.” Hayden’s voice was filled with awe.

No one other than Heyer and his staff instructor had ever really seen him practice. That it affected his roommates to the point of open jawed amazement caught him by surprise.

“Yeah man, you’ve got a real talent with that,” Collin agreed.

Jonathan was flattered briefly, until Collin snapped his fingers and exclaimed, “Let’s go back to the scene where we flashback to Jesus staff training with his father, I want to make Joseph divinely inspired by the power of the Holy Spirit!”

“Nice!” Hayden agreed as they both turned and headed up the stairs.

Two hours later Jonathan found himself drenched in sweat and exhausted, another day behind him. He took off the bag gloves and unwrapped his hands. He remembered the first time he’d attempted to use the bag without the wraps supporting his wrist. His hands had shaken for an hour afterward and he couldn’t understand how boxers could hit a bag for so long without damaging their hands and wrists. It turned out certain safety precautions got left out when you bought a secondhand heavy bag at a garage sale.

He hung the wrist wraps and gloves on the wall where he’d built a place for them, then found himself staring down at his hands.

They were young looking, callused, but not the massive hands of a man. His father’s hands would make his look like they belonged to a child. He couldn’t help but think they would never be enough. The Ferox could probably swallow his entire fist without even choking. How could these hands ever stop the beast? It wasn’t a confidence building thought, and it wasn’t the first time he’d looked down at his hands and worried about how fragile they made him feel.

He needed to look down at his hands and see weapons.

He was about to leave the garage when he saw his staff lying on the floor. He picked it up to return it to the cabinet and noticed the contents were not as he had left them.

The cabinet usually housed his two practice staffs and the metal demolition bar. Today there was an additional item. It was as long and tall as the demolition bar but was wrapped in brown recycled paper with a piece of twine. There was a note attached to it. Jonathan pulled it out and sat on the bench. It was heavy, but not as heavy as the demolition bar. The note was typed, not handwritten, and simply said:

This is within earthly means, but barely.

It will not break. I promise.

Will be around soon.

The note wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be. Heyer had left this for him. He’d even wrapped it.

Jonathan pulled the staff from the paper and stared into a reflective surface. It was an exact replica of the demolition bar as far as dimensions went, but it wasn’t the same material.

Beautiful
, Jonathan found himself thinking, no other word coming to mind.

His eyes got lost in its reflective surface like a man mesmerized by a camp fire. He didn’t know anything about metal working, but he’d seen a lot of different materials in his time at the hardware store. This he didn’t recognize. It was smooth to the touch and it caught the light strangely, as though it were dark graphite at one angle and then silver at another. He could feel its resilience. Perhaps it was an alloy that was hard to come by or that humans didn’t know how to isolate or temper; maybe it was the way the weapon had been forged, but it felt invincible.

He ran his hand down the surface and felt some imperfections in the steel near the center. He flipped it over to see that the alien had put an engraving into one of the surfaces.

“Excali-bar,” Jonathan said out loud.

He smiled, rolling his eyes at the alien’s sense of humor. It occurred to him that he’d never thought of Heyer as having a sense of humor.

He tested its fit in the motorcycle holster and was pleased to find it clicked into place as well as the original. For a moment he thought he might show it to Mr. Fletcher, see if he knew what it was, but realized it wouldn’t be wise. Better to keep it hidden until he needed it, especially if it might border on being otherworldly.

Confidence seemed to flow through the staff into him. He saw himself before the beast holding this weapon, and briefly, felt something he hadn’t before: impatient. He looked forward to standing in front of his enemy with this weapon, to strike the monster down with it. It was iconic, something a knight would slay a dragon with; something a king would pull from a stone. It reminded him of the stories his roommates indulged in over and over again.

He was honored just to hold it. He’d never felt this for the device implanted in his chest. That had been forced on him, and he could never set it down. The implant owned him, it wasn’t a weapon so much as it was the chain shackling him to his future. This was different, he’d earned this weapon, and it made him feel like fate was finally trying to level the field.

He didn’t believe in such things, it wasn’t his nature. Still, it felt good to think that maybe, the universe saw him, and was on his side.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

WEDNESDAY | AUGUST 24, 2005 | 8:15 PM

JONATHAN
put the phone down on the bed next to him
.
He took a deep breath as he finally released his grip.

Telling his mother, with no real explanation, that he hadn’t attended college for the last quarter was like his nightmares; not for the fear, but for the shame. Her disapproval had been raw and genuine.

Like all of his conversations, it was overshadowed by his frustrating silence in the face of the question
why?
It was worse with his mother, because he’d kept her in the dark about the night in the hospital. He couldn’t just rely on her taking pity on him, she wouldn’t assume that something inside him was injured and needed time to heal. It felt like, to her eyes, he was purposely and self-destructively throwing his life away.

He started the conversation by explaining that there was nothing to be done, he’d waited until registration for the coming quarter had come and passed. She hadn’t exploded in anger. He‘d caught her so off guard that she’d been at a loss on how to deal with the news. At times, there had been a silence on the other side of the phone line that disturbed him to his core.

This was far from the last of it. Evelyn would show up in person soon. She’d be upset with Paige for not having told her that Jonathan was having such an unexpected shift in his behavior. He’d have to explain that he’d forbidden her and again be left unable to explain his actions.

Why? The looming question he faced gave him sympathy for Heyer. There he’d been, demanding answers the alien felt he had good reason not to give. What was truly worse, not knowing the answer, or being forced to carry the truth alone?

When he’d finally succeeded in getting off the phone, he knew he’d be screening his calls for weeks. Unless he could think of something to say, a lie that would satisfy her, a story that fit the appearance but wasn’t the truth. Maybe, when she showed up on his doorstep, he’d have to tell her about the attack. That was a problem for a future Jonathan to deal with. Right now he had to be concerned with getting to that future.

He took some solace in the thought that at least he’d told her, she hadn’t heard it from a student loan adviser, she wouldn’t just find out when he ended up dead in the weeks to come. Given the time-traveling parallel dimension-jumping paradoxical complexities of the whole mess, Jonathan didn’t know what it would look like to the people he left behind if he died. He would have to ask the alien; of course, that didn’t mean he would get a straight answer, or any answer for that matter.

No. He would demand to know this much.

It was with these thoughts that Jonathan rested his head that night. He’d ceased to be afraid of sleep. Troubling dreams were just a part of what he was now, perhaps a part of his training. He was quite familiar with the sensation of fear. He got a lesson every night.

A few days later, he looked up from his computer screen to see Heyer’s reflection in his window.

The alien either came into existence in his bedroom or had entered the house so quietly that he hadn’t heard him. Both were possible, but at least Jonathan hadn’t jumped this time.

“I was starting to worry you wouldn’t be back again,” Jonathan said.

“I said I would be here,” Heyer said, “so here I am.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan replied, turning in his chair to face him.

“How are you fairing?” Heyer asked. “The gate will be breached soon.”