Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop

by Patrick Stephens

  “Underground. That’s where Velric said he’d been living,” I said. “I’m betting the rest of the Belovores are going there to hide until it’s time to come out.”

  “What do you expect me to do?”

  I took a deep breath and sighed. “I want you to stop feeling sorry for yourself, and help me, Melanie, and Kayt stop this.”

  “It seems like you’ve got enough help,” she motioned to Davion.

  “About that,” I said. “Davion doesn’t seem to believe it himself. He’s not acting consistent. One minute he goes into confession mode; the next he is a servant to whatever he happens to believe.”

  “Sounds like organized religion to me,” Annalise smirked.

  “I’d rather you not discuss me as if I am not here,” Davion said.

  I shook my head and pulled the rifle strap off my shoulder. I handed it to Annalise. She refused it and backed away. She may have lost what drove her to suicide-by-Belovore, but I could still see her fear reflected. I couldn’t help but consider that I looked the same. I slung the rifle along my side, and we ushered Davion back out into the courtyard.

  Startling us, Kayt and Melanie ran up as soon as we left the barracks. I almost jerked my gun upwards, and the jolt caused my hand to strike towards the trigger. Melanie held her pistol at her side and huffed.

  “The story is spreading,” Kayt said.

  “What did you say?” Annalise asked.

  “Where…?” Melanie tried to ask, but her breath betrayed her.

  “We’ll talk later,” Kayt bit back. “The troops are coming.”

  “Where…?” Melanie tried again. Davion slunk towards her. I ordered him not to move, but he was still a step closer to Melanie.

  “You’ve been spreading stories?” Davion asked.

  Kayt walked up to him, Annalise grabbed her by the back of her shirt. Nothing more than you’ve been doing, murderer.”

  Annalise quickly let go and stepped away. Indecision. I’d seen that in myself before. Once you have that fear, you never lose it. You can only hope to control it. “

  “I assure you, Kayt,” Davion consoled. “I have only been doing what I believe is right.”

  “Still,” Kayt turned back to me. “Provided nobody fires their weapon, we shouldn’t see any gunfire. If what we did works, they’ll be seeing the troops as a potential rescue.”

  “You have been spreading lies, and will only hasten the extinction of the Belovores! The troops will slaughter them,” Davion said. None of us gave him our attention. Davion coughed, over-exaggerating, leaned forward, and pulled Melanie’s pistol. He shot her in the chest at point blank range, and fired again. The gunshots echoed throughout the commune grounds as the deathly silent morning was interrupted. It was a second before the silence was filled with a voice yelling to return fire. The top of the walls, the crow’s nest, and the hutches surrounding the commune lit up with gunfire.

  It had all happened in less than a second.

  Melanie, startled, fell backwards. An energy bullet has severed her throat, while another hung just above her left breast. She scrambled for a moment like a woman drowning in the air. Annalise and I rushed towards her while Kayt looked on horror. I cradled her in my arms, I could feel her gasping for air yet her chest never rose. The blood was warm, and overtook the metallic smell of the Belovores with sweat and iron. Annalise pressed her hands to Melanie’s chest and throat. The slightest bit of pressure caused more blood to seep out.

  Weakly, Melanie pushed Annalise’s hands away and held them. Annalise’s eyes were wide, and she trembled. She stared into Melanie’s eyes, knowing they’d never close without help. I never knew when she stopped trying to breathe. We all looked at Davion. A normal man would have fled. Something held him to his ground. I let Melanie’s head fall, and scrambled to point the weapon at him. I charged it just as easily as I had when I severed the strap from Annalise’s bed, and pointed it at him.

  He backed up a few steps, dropped the pistol, and ran towards the Hall.

  I wanted to fire.

  I wanted to kill him in that moment. But I didn’t. I held back. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced the kind of hatred I felt for Davion in that moment. The sound of gunfire at the wall concealed the sound of his footsteps.

  I looked down at Melanie as Kayt knelt at her side. Annalise still held Melanie’s hand. Maybe I’d spread myself too thin? Perhaps I should have been the one telling the stories to the Forgiven instead of letting Davion lead me through the hall, talking about Velric. Maybe all the choices I’d made up until that moment were dictated by a plan set into action months or years ago. Death had been all around me, and all I could think was that I hadn’t done enough. I should have been there for Lancaster, I should have seen Melanie’s danger. Most of all, I should have seen what Melanie had tried to tell us about Davion.

  Now, with everything I’ve written, and the end yet to come, I feel like it wasn’t enough. Like I hadn’t been privy to what had really been going on, and that I was suffering for it. We all were suffering for it. At the wall, Forgiven fell to the ground. Some hid behind the large bricks, closing their eyes while dust rattled down on them from where energy bolts hit the concrete. When one fell, another climbed up and took his place. The doors to the commune hadn’t opened. We could only imagine the body count.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  All Your Life Will Ever Be

  My hand shakes, and my brain has taken over the telling of my story more than once. I would grade this therapeutic technique very harshly. Velric hadn’t gone insane – I was closer to that than he. But what had happened was a consequence of time and long life. I have no tangible proof of its truth. But at its heart, and with all the evidence before me, I know what happened.

  It began before the Belovores started their return to Sondranos. He must have been somewhere secluded, away from the commune, but close enough to receive their signal.

  Velric sits in one of the cambers he’s chosen to spend the rest of his life in, taken care of by the people of the commune. In the silence, he’s lost. A typical Belovore his age needs to connect to the streamlined hive. His thoughts need to be directed away from senility and shaped into a productive member of society. With the Belovores gone, there’s no chance of Velric gaining that clarity. That absence allows his mind to stray to the past. He dreams of Admiral Perry. The books Perry had given him, though later discovered as fiction, had been the catalyst his people needed to strive towards something bigger. He’d stayed thinking his people would return after having grown exponentially – or that he wouldn’t survive very long without them. Either end of the spectrum controls his future.

  He closes his eyes and can see his people swarming over Sondranos. He pictures burrows in the side of the crags, and traces the underground lines of commerce and trade that web out beneath the ground. Later, when the colony is overrun by the Irene colonists, those pathways would be torn through and used to shape a more human standard. Velric remembers what it was like to be young, clear headed, and approached by the females of his sect. Many turn on to him and stroke his spine as if they’d been more than just members of the same group. Velric knows it’s because of his virility, which guarantees long life, but his natural instincts force him to back away until a patient mate makes herself evident. She will approach him long after the rest have given up their advances for easier prey. She will forgive him his faults, but condemn his mistakes until he knows how to be a better servant to the Belovores.

  Of course, then the Irene would land, and all of that would be shattered.

  Here, Velric’s mind begins to twist. In the darkness of his chamber, he can’t feign to direct his thoughts to a better alternative. It shoots out in any given direction, aiming at the darkness and hoping for a solid foundation. Instead, it lands on resentment. Velric twitches as he tries to push away one thought after another. The Irene stole your life away; Admiral Perry severed you from the link; Annika Granger tried to tell you the truth, but you were too thi
ck-headed to grasp the consequences. All because you wanted to be remembered in history for having elevated the Belovore race to the stars.

  Velric grumbles when he opens his eyes. His head hurts. The pain starts in the back of his eyes, and throbs down his face. Jolts of surging and pounding shock flow down his chest and settle in his stomach. His spine tingles. No breeze can penetrate his chamber, so he knows the chill comes from inside.

  They’re returning – his instinct says. Only, they are only half of what they were before. His mind slowly regenerates a connection to the hive and Velric discovers that he doesn’t quite fit. Establishing a connection into the hive mind after years of separation, after growing old, and older, has turned his signal into a square peg trying to fit into a circular node. Velric finds this change allows him to continue his own processes, rather than allowing the younger generation to take over. He can sense that they’ve turned the ship around. He can feel their despair, and their hope to return to a welcoming environment.

  Velric plants the seed of his own truth into the mix. He insists that the humans would kill them the moment they set foot on the soil He’s grown to believe this in his old age. The anger is small and nearly goes unnoticed. Nobody suspects who the thoughts come from, as Velric’s power over them is innate, new. Like a virus entering the body of someone who’s never been sick, it spreads faster than anyone can control. Even he doesn’t understand.

  He longs to be part of the hive again. Maybe it will take away his anger and guilt. However, his age has created a loop. He may have planted only a seed of resentment, but his age and will to regain a connection strives for everything it can grasp within the hive. It takes those seeds and creates a feedback loop within his mind, and the minds of the surviving Belovores. He sends his hatred, and the hatred returns and grows. It degrades until Velric no longer recalls what it was like to be Belovore. He can no longer see the swarming of his people on the surface, or burrowed beneath the crags. The touch of a female Belovore eludes him, and when he tries to grab hold of what it should have felt like, it only creates more disillusionment. Little by little, Velric allows his hatred to consume him; bit by bit, that hatred takes over the hive mind, and replaces the young Belovore leadership with Velric’s.

  It takes years, and by the time Father Corin arrives, Velric is well past the initial hatred, and had already begun to plan for the destruction of Sondranos. His first task is to help design a process for radio signals that will blanket the city. One based on his own neurological structure.

  He sits in his chamber, and waits.

  “This is why you should have left me behind,” Annalise said. She held her hands on Melanie’s chest as if stopping the blood from trickling out would start her heart again.

  “You’d love nothing more than to give up right now,” I said. I took Annalise’s hand, pulled it off Melanie’s chest, and held them in front of her. “You’ve been full of it this entire time, haven’t you?”

  Annalise looked at her hands, and she bit back her lips. She started to stammer, but I stopped her. “Don’t say another word. You are not responsible for any of this, and you never could have been. If you think you have to take responsibility for this, then you better find that guy who tried to rape you, and apologize.”

  Annalise pulled her hands away and scowled. She eyed me. It was a terrible thing to say, but I doubted small talk would have gotten her to wake up. I needed her to be angry, and anger with me as opposed to compliance with the Belovores was as good as I could get.

  “What do we do now?” Kayt asked. She’d stepped away from the body, and put her hands on her head before speaking. Melanie might as well have been just another fallen casualty. I’d grown disgusted by how easily the commune pushed away sight of something terrible, yet willingly strode into something worse. She watched as the Forgiven along the wall fired. Every now and then, one dropped or crumbled against the wall.

  “Keep going,” I said. “Try and convince the Forgiven to stop shooting and pray to your Gods they do. Then pray some more that the ‘s troops stops shooting back. I’m going to get Davion.”

  “Revenge?” Annalise mumbled.

  “Revenge is what got everyone on this planet killed,” I said. “I’m not dealing with that anymore. I’m going to make sure Davion doesn’t tell Velric.

  Kayt gasped, “He’ll start the slaughter early when he finds out.”

  “Annalise, I need you to wake up. Stop this guilt, and do something. No matter how pointless or stupid you think it is,” I said.

  “Remember what you told me? If all you ever think about is negative, then that’s all your life will ever be,” Kayt knelt down beside Annalise. Even through the gunfire, her pants crunched against the dirt in the grass, and squeaked against the dew. “I have an idea. We need to gather as many rifles as we can. The big ones.”

  I clutched my rifle to my waist, though I felt sick at the thought of using it. I hadn’t fired it once, but knowing what rifles like the one I had were capable of, I couldn’t bear associating myself with them. Kayt set her hand on Annalise’s shoulder, and Annalise looked to her. For the first time, Annalise started to cry. It was short, and I only knew it happened by the tears she wiped away – Melanie’s blood hadn’t dried on her hands, so Annalise ended up smearing blood along her cheeks as a result. She didn’t care. But this time, that was good.

  They stood and headed towards the barracks to arm themselves with more powerful weapons. I took the moment to watch the perpetual gunfire coming from the walls. My battle was in the other direction – with Davion.

  Davion had made a beeline for the hall, so I did as well. I couldn’t catch my breath. I leaned against the door, setting my ear to the wood as I held my chest as still as possible. Inside, Davion and Father Corin spoke loudly, as if from across the room from each other.

  “Those I brought in, Father,” he yelled. “I’m afraid I’ve been mistaken.”

  “The moment of Salvation has already begun, Davion.”

  “I know, but I do not wish my failures to be the reason this attempt fails. I don’t know how I could stand allowing an entire species to perish.”

  “This is only right, Davion.”

  We were right about one thing, at least. Davion did have a conscience – unfortunately, I seemed to have pointed it more towards preventing the extinction of mass murders over the destruction of a small fragment of humankind. Part of me could understand the dichotomies swirling about in his consciousness. This was the kind of choice I’d say was easy to make, but when it came down to it, I would freeze and be unable to consider all the possibilities.

  “Quiet, both of you. I could hear your whining through the transceiver. All the Belovores in the compound tunnels could. You are pathetic,” Velric stomped into the room. I pushed the door open just enough to see inside, and watched Velric as he walked from the far end of the room to the table we’d been sitting at. It must have been replaced after we’d left. He glowered at Davion, who’d backed up onto the table. Davion’s hands moved wildly behind him. I couldn’t see what Velric referred to as the transceiver, but I assumed it was how Velric had known to come in when he did. The entrance to their tunnels must have been close. At least, close enough for him to return after hearing Davion’s pleas to Father Corin.

  Velric flexed his fingers, and then grabbed Davion by the throat.

  “This has been agreed upon,” Father Corin said.

  Davion gasped out a short sibilant before Velric snapped his neck. Velric dropped the body on the table. Davion’s hand twitched.

  It must have only been seconds. It only lasted a few seconds, in the same instant in which I’d stood, and opened the door. False Daniel returned. In my mind, we were surrounded by a starry night, as if we were all back in the plateaued region of the crater with Annalise cooking on the engine. He was as solid as Annalise, Kayt, or myself. We stood with nothing else around us. For a moment, I didn’t want to face him. The words I’d have to say, the things I would bring up with
the intention of bringing him down – none of them sat well within me.

  ‘I’m the Daniel you expect to face when you come back,’ he said. ‘You’ve only been able to see the real me once, during this. Why do you think that is?’

  ‘I met Daniel at the Meadows, in Edinburgh,’ I started. ‘I’d bought a sandwich and was halfway through my Irn Bru when he walked past – his dogs Manny and Coto jumped up to me instantly. One tried to devour the roast turkey. The first thing Daniel said to me was something so plain, so unimportant, that I could never hope to remember it.’

  ‘He broke it off because you didn’t deserve him.’

  I tried channelling the image of the Daniel that had convinced me to drive the car. I could feel him standing next to me, urging me to take on False Daniel in a way that I should have from the beginning. ‘He would spend hundreds in petrol and train tickets to come down to Glasgow. We never once fought about the money. He got mad at me for suggesting I quit my job as program director at St. Michel’s because he knew it was my dream job, and I wasn’t fighting for my own dream.’

  ‘You were fired,’ False Daniel said. He’d already begun to deflate. His skin hung loose around his chin and cheeks. His eyes were sunken.

  ‘I loved him and he loved me. He always wanted me to be happy.’

  ‘He told you why you weren’t good enough for him.’

  ‘That’s why he got mad. That’s why he broke it off – he saw me trying to reason away my future, only seeing the bad things in life, and he tried to jump start me. I was so scared that I couldn’t see that. Daniel has always done that. This time I was too fucking thick to get it. Daniel has always been beside me when I needed him. When I was afraid to contact the power company about a bill because of a faulty seven hundred pound charge, he sat me down and made me explain everything I’d done in the last month. I only made it halfway through the week before I got embarrassed about my own lack of confidence. After that, Daniel called them with me. On speakerphone. He never had any intention of displaying my inadequacies and leaving me alone with them.’