Banished To Earth Book Two, A Dragon King? (40)

Chapter 68

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      The search for Stayner suddenly felt hollow, pointless. Killing him was serving them. Ruling this planet was also serving them. He was not only their slave, but he was also their construct. Did that make them his God? Mable believed that. It didn’t save her, though. She was doomed from childhood because of them!

   Was his love for her, the pain he was feeling now, nothing more than the product of inserted emotions? Lies concocted to give him a past that never was. They needed him to have a relationship with a woman he had just met. Yes, she bore him, for a moment, but he was not actually conceived in her, only implanted by them. Evan Gillette was not his father. They were.

    Whatever feelings he had for her were manufactured. A lie implanted in him to achieve a desired effect, something to test and study. She was not his mother. He had no family, only manufacturers. He was not a person but a product. He was not real. He was not free. They made him. They owned him. He thought he was free. He felt free.  But what is freedom in a fishbowl? A soft lie, soft enough to sleep on. Which is what he did. That first ‘morning’ on the Urgis ship. He did not wake up as an empty infant. Feelings and knowledge already filled his mind. But they were not earned through experience. He had no experience, not even an identity, only a name. His past, his love for Mabel, like his knowledge of English and a million other useful bits of information, was nothing but a download. So present, so naturally situated within him, he did not question it. He got up and stepped into their pretence without hesitation or examination. There were no specific, clear memories of his past, only practical knowledge and feelings he should have had, had he ever lived.

    Muffled voices in the dark, their voices; Davin and Pry’s voices, distant taunting just within earshot, but still so far away. A mere shadow was all he had ever been. Davin’s shadow, struggling to be, but never more than the absence of light on the ground, attached to Davin, just as he was attached to the Urgis now.

   He must break free. That was all he wanted. Freedom to serve himself as he saw fit…

                                                                                        *

      They could have dropped her here, far from Stayner, but that would not have served their purpose. And everything was about serving their purpose!

    Of course he had no way of knowing this pasture was safe. True, he did not sense Monsters or Hunters or the Urgis. But they were up there always looking down, assessing, weighing options, gathering data.

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 Was that what he was, a device fit for nothing but gathering data, a soulless tool clenched and trapped in the hands of heartless tyrants? Was he soulless? Maybe he was. Maybe that is why he was able to turn his back on his dying Mother. Did they make him soulless? Could they even make a soul? He was not sure. They were all questions worth asking. But how could he answer such a question? There was only one way…

    Wiping his face dry, he put his gun away. He knew what he must do. He sat down on the soft grass and waited. Fluffy white clouds drifted beneath the blue. A soothing, warm breeze tried to comfort him. The faint sweet fragrance of wildflowers tantalised his nostrils, as golden sunlight spread over him like a warm blanket.

   Images of his mother’s pitiful face tore at his mind. The pain felt real. But was it? Saving her was not possible. Dying with her; a foregone conclusion. That was how things were. They set up the circumstance. They sent his mother to Earth not to fight but to die. But he left her. Did that not make him a monster too?

  Yes, he was a monster. And what was Davin? An invader, an alien, an alien with a greater purpose, a better purpose? A real being, a person, not a product. That being the case he could not help but serve a greater purpose. Besides, serving anyone or anything had to be better than serving them.

   They made him, but did that really mean he was them? Surely not, or need not be.

    Davin was still trapped inside of Chase at this time. And in that moment, the distant dark splotch, a breach appeared in Davin’s world far to the east and gave him hope and direction.

    Davin had no way of knowing this, having trapped himself in his own little world, a world that would eventually free him, but that time had not yet come…

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    Silence lay over Chase. The pasture was still, except for the gentle breeze teasing its way through the ankle-deep quilt of yellow wildflowers. The world was rewarding him. Why? The sun did not burn. There were no briers or thistles in his grassy flower bed.

      Soft warm Earth cushioned him, inviting him to lie on it. Was there anything else to do? Conquer the world, please his masters, his makers. They no more deserved Earth than he did. Could he find a way to stop Stayner? And if he succeeded, the Urgis would leave? He knew better now. Any kindness, any benevolence he might offer the Earth’s survivors would only assure their death, or so he assumed. In fact, that was his mission: to cleanse the Earth, the very Earth comforting him now.

  Davin was not the monster from outer space. He was the Savior. And Mable killed him. And Stayner killed her. But the real monsters were the Urgis. Could Davin have stopped them? Probably not, but he would have tried. And he did.  It cost him his life. A life for a life.

   A monster for a hero. Would that undo anything? No. But maybe he could rest in peace, earn the peace, sweet, gracious Earth was giving him now.

     Lying down, expecting deadly Stayner perverted insects to swarm over his body and tear away his living flesh one minuscule bite at a time, he waited to die. Once his flesh was gone, truly gone, maybe then a soul would emerge and fly free. 

    His mind, overcome with misery and desperation, had given him the ability to reason and remember honestly.

      ‘We made you’. Fev's words pound against his skull for days. There were no insects, no monsters, no death, just the sun and the moon chasing each other across the sky.

   The sun peeked through the trees yet again and found him lying face up. The blue, the warmth and the light told him it was time. Time to free his soul, if he truly had one.

   He sat up, inhaled one last breath, pulled his pistol, jammed its barrel up into the soft skin of his neck and pulled the trigger. His head exploded. No one heard or saw anything except the Urgis.

   For one moment, a pink cloud hovered above his headless shoulders. The morning breeze blew it away and let his lifeless body fall. 

     At that same moment, Pry’s single hair strand penetrated Davin's temple and set him free in a burst of blinding white light. Of course, neither knew that Chase was dead, only that Davin had found his way home.