The Begining (The Navigator Book 1) by Ben Winston

don't follow you. All he told me was that she was his controller when he was on missions.”
    “She was much more than that. One of the ways they taught their people how to deal with pain was to train their minds using sex. He explained it to me that, during sex there are these chemicals that get released into your body. Chemicals that help the body overcome fatigue and not feel pain as much,” Laura explained.
    Jed nodded. “Endorphins. But they are a response, not something you can train to happen when you wanted it to.”
    “Apparently they did. Do you remember that scar on Joe's forehead?” When Jed nodded, she continued. “Well, that happened about a month after we got together. He hadn't really told me about any of this yet, but he got that scar in an accident that could have killed or blinded him.
    “He was burning papers and old magazines in someone's old fire-pit. He'd gone through all the stuff we were getting rid of, so he knew there wasn't anything explosive in there. Now, you'd think that, if there had ever been anything explosive in there from before, it would have already exploded. Well, that wasn't the case.
    “I was doing dishes, and I could see him right out of the window over the sink. He was about seventy-five yards from the house, anyway, I heard this big explosion, and the windows in the house shook. When I looked out the window, I saw that Joe's head was surrounded by a huge fire-ball.
    “I dropped what I was doing and ran out to see if he was alright. He wasn't; part of the metal from the can that exploded had sliced open his forehead, and blood was shooting out of an open vein. He was dazed but was still on his feet. I helped him get back to the house.
    “I got a rag and managed to slow down the bleeding, but it was clear he needed to get to the hospital or he was going to bleed out. The explosion had also burned one of his ears, shattered his front teeth, and cut one of his hands. The hand was bleeding pretty good, too, but nothing like his head was,” Laura said.
    “Head wounds are a bitch; you don't know how much damage has been done, and they bleed profusely, so it always looks worse than it usually is,” Jed replied.
    “This was as bad as it looked. I had to write a rubber check for gas, but I managed to get him as far as his parent's house. From there, his father took us over to the Emergency room. All in all, it took almost an hour and a half to get him to the hospital, and he was starting to slowly go into shock.
    “However, he knew he was going into shock and helped fend it off. They wouldn't let me go back in the room with him, but his dad told me later that even when they stitched it up, Joe never once complained about pain. Through all of that, he also never said how badly it hurt,” she finished.
    “I'm sure a lot of that was endorphins, but a lot of it could have simply been because of the amount of damage. Something like that would tend to numb the area, helping the injured man to get assistance,” Jed said, trying to find another explanation. "Endorphins alone wouldn't have kept him from feeling the pain for that long.”
    “No, they wouldn't have, unless he had been controlling them. Hell, even the nurses I overheard talking about him commented on how strange it was. But that wasn't the only time I saw him do it, but it was the most dramatic.”
    “I find it really hard to believe, much less understand how a resistance to pain can be 'trained' into someone. It actually sounds like something from one of the story's Joe wrote,” Jed said.
    “Well, it did work. I saw him do it a few times. However, I think the Crones Disease finally broke that conditioning. The last few years he was in almost constant pain. Honestly, I don't understand why they took him. What value would he have to them now?” Laura asked.
    “Who knows? But remember, we really shouldn't talk about that while we're away from home. We have no idea who's listening,” Jed replied just before the door