Introductions

175 A.J. (After Judgment)
Beijing, China

    “Come on Raef! Don’t tell me you are tired!”
   
“N-n-not t-tired,” stuttered the slightly chubby boy behind me as he stumbled over the rocky mountain terrain.

With a shrug I turned back to navigating my way over the dangerous hike, letting my feet fall on instinct rather then precise calculation. It was no trouble to climb something that you had climbed everyday since arriving, and though it had only been two weeks…

The past, ever touchy, stopped me from thinking further. The scene before me was what stopped me in my tracks.

Raef shuffled to a stop next to me, surveying the land with his be speckled gray eyes.

“Oh…” was all he could say.

‘Yes, oh…’ I agreed silently.

It was beautiful, this area which, since Judgment Day, had turned back to the growth and wildness of nature. Vines and undergrowth over took ruins of buildings, sent into oblivion by bio-bombs. They were no different from the over-arching hills of China’s natural landscape. Rocky and uncertain, the ruins were silhouetted against the steadily rising sun on the horizon, casting shadows against the crevasses furthest away from the ball of fire. In a world where sadness reigned, this was something pure. I basked in the truth and the wildness.

“What is this place?” asked Raef, breathing heavily in exhaustion, so his words were only half audible.

“It was once a city, before…” I stopped. Before the world collapsed, it had been one of the greatest cities in the world, full of life as well as its share of strife. The beauty that I had basked in was replaced by the sadness, and the knowledge of what had happened.

Raef understood. He did not need to be pressed further.

A center of technology, the Chinese city had been one of the first destroyed. Little regard was given to China in the first place, as the mass of its population had belonged to no World Religion. Not like America or Europe, not like my homeland. Still, intellectuals were dangerous, thus… China had been destroyed.

Now it was considered unwanted and unclaimed by any of the world religions. In this moment, it was also my home.

For a time Raef and I stood in silence, not awkward but companionably. We were witnesses to what once was, and remembered what should have been, but was not. In the emptiness, the ghosts whispered their stories to us.

Obligingly, we listened. I was afraid of them, as was Raef, but it was part of our job to stand as witnesses. It was a Memors’ job to remember.

“The sun’s rising,” said Raef, whispering so as to not disturb the peace and serenity. 

He was right, and the first thing that I had learned was that is was best to stay in the night. If caught by those who followed the New Church, we would be killed. For though they saw the Memors as small, there was always a need to terminate the rodents.

“We should start heading back,” he prompted again. This time instead of agreeing with him I simply nodded.

A good friend would have left with him, or better yet, a better friend would have carried with poor guy down the mountain. I just stood there, reluctant to leave as I always was.

Finally, Raef could stand waiting no longer and turned to start down the mountain.

“You’ll never make it down you know,” I said, smiling, my blue-almost-black eyes sparkling with mischief. “You know that.”

He huffed and ignored me, attempting to step across rocks, only to find himself slipping. With a chuckle, I caught his arm and kept him from tumbling over the side. The speed that it took wasn’t hard to accomplish, but it took everything I had to keep him from tumbling.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t blessed with strength.

Once he was safely over on the flatter area I fell to the ground with another chuckle, attempting to make it look as if I was in perfect shape. Truthfully, I was exhausted, not as much as Raef was… but still, pride was no reason to go tumbling over the edge.

“Perhaps we should call for transport,” I remarked with a grin in his direction. He was still on his back, his dirt-streaked once brown (now almost black) polo rising like the sun with his heavy breathing.

I looked no better in my dirt crusted jeans and shapeless gray tunic, ravaged off a museum dummy in Beijing’s version of the Museum of Natural History. But that’s how life was for us, grab what you can and try not to get caught doing it.

“Ya, lets,” agreed Raef when his breath came back enough for him to breathe and talk at the same time.

With a flip of my wrist I had the broken Rolex watch up to my ear. While the thing couldn’t tell time, it had easily been remade into a communicator.

“Brian?” I asked.

“Right here Selah, what can I do for you?” answered a smooth, cool-headed voice.

“Would you mind sending us a ride? We’re on the T of H ruins. Raef and I are a bit too tired to walk down ourselves, and we’ve got a steadily rising sun at our backs.”

“You now you could have just asked. No explanations needed,” answered Brian with a sneer in his voice.

“What can I say? I’m a suck up.”

“Ree and her team are on their way.”

I started to nod in affirmation. Then stopped. “Wait… Ree is a-“

“Aviator. Yeah. Have fun with that Selah. I’ll see you when you get back.”

My wrist dropped to my side and I leaned back against the ground. Worry and unaware of the conversation with our tech supervisor, Raef leaned over to me. “What’s wrong?”

“I hate flying,” I said with a moan.

In disbelief my friend sat up with a speed that almost matched mine.

“You’re afraid of flying?” he half shouted.

I scowled deeper. Then he laughed, and I found myself wishing I could pummel him.

“I’m not afraid… I just don’t-“

The sound of chopper wings cut me off, and Raef and I watched as Ree and her co-pilot waved from the cockpit of the medieval helicopter.

In the pit of my stomach, something lurched.

    Ree motioned quickly to us and one on the men hanging from the inside turned the spot light so that it showed us our path, but didn’t blind us. I motioned for Raef to go first; of the two of us he was the least athletic. His heavy build did little good for jumping from building to building, or running from the New Church, but his mind was abnormally sharp.

    He judged the distance, sprung, and barely made it.

    I couldn’t help but snicker as his body wiggled into the hamper.

    “All right Sel- your turn,” called the man with the spot light.

    It wasn’t the distance between the helicopter and my mountaintop that caused my stomach to lurch into my throat. I could easily make that jump, but in the moments before my legs unwillingly left the ground, sweat ran rampant on my forehead and I could feel my hands shaking at my side.
   
    Then I had jumped and landed, not safely, in the hamper of the transport.

    Raef was watching me, his small, beetle black eyes glinting in the dimly lit world. The spotlight was turned off, and I was glad that no one would notice the sickly pallor in my already pale face. After all, I had a reputation to maintain, and if it became common knowledge that I was afraid of flying- well, I would undoubtedly loose the respect that I had built up in the fourteen years I had been with the Memors.

    In order to keep myself from vomiting, I curled into a ball and buried my head in my knees. For the most part, the rest of the people in the helicopter paid no attention to me- they were in too much of a hurry to get back to our home beneath the ground.

    Around us, the world blurred. Mountains made of steel, overcome with the growth of nature pierced a slowly burning sky with their ruins. A heavy fog was settling across the ground below us, and with the dawn came the soft movement of animals. They fled at the roar of the flying mass above them.

    I was envious of their ability to get away from the contraption around me.

    The monstrous thing dipped slightly and my stomach jumped higher to my throat. Before letting go of my stomach, my throat tightened, cutting off my breath. In an effort to get some air I looked up, and found myself staring once again into Raef’s eyes.

    I snarled, prompting a look from one of the men in the back hamper. Quickly the man looked back to the lightening landscape below us, after he quickly assured himself that the snarl was not from him. Raef, on the other hand, kept staring, mirth in his beetle black eyes.

    “Seriously man, do you have a problem?” I said as casually as I could, blurring my eyesight so I couldn’t make out the movement around us quite as well.

    Raef just sort of shook his head and continued to stare, and since I didn’t really feel like saying something sharp was worth loosing my breakfast I simply shrugged my shoulders and lay my hot forehead against my knees once more.