Runner

by Samantha Lau

  Runner

  Samantha Lau

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Runner

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  Further Reading: Sinait

  Also By Samantha Lau

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Gentle music started playing, first soft, then slowly increasing in volume. On cue with the music, the black glass windows that took up most of one wall, floor to ceiling, started to lose their tint, progressing from black to a cloudy gray, and finally clear. Now able to, the morning light streamed through, illuminating the studio apartment and reflecting off the white furniture and walls.

  In bed, Wei stretched before he even opened his eyes. A sound escaped his lips as he did, then he simply laid there for a moment. The music continued.

  “Alarm off,” he called, voice a little hoarse from sleep, but still soft and melodious. The music stopped at once to his command.

  His green eyes opened slowly, focusing on the white ceiling.

  A warm female voice came from unseen speakers on the walls. It was a computerized voice, nothing more than an AI assistant; but it was gentle and friendly, and if it weren’t for the slightly off pauses between statements, it could have been confused for a real person.

  “Good morning, Wei. It is six in the morning of the 127th yàorì. The sun has been up for one hour. The weather is clear, with a dome average of 23ºC...”

  Wei rubbed his face, ignoring the morning spiel. It was getting progressively harder to get out of bed each morning. What for? Day after day, his life was stuck on the same pointless routine.

  “... You have three unread messages from: Cheng, Li Fang, Li Fang. Should I read them?” The AI inquired.

  “No.” Wei forced himself up, sitting naked at the edge of the bed. Whether he wanted to or not, he had to get up.

  “You have five events scheduled for today.”

  It wasn’t a regular day after all. No – not just another day. An important day, or that was what everyone kept telling him.

  “At 8a.m.: Graduation. At noon: Post-graduation luncheon...” the AI continued.

  Wei let her speak as he got to his feet. He made his way to the bathroom. The light came on automatically as he stepped in. He called for water to turn on and slipped under the warm shower. Closing his eyes, he let the water spray on his face. Maybe things would get better. Maybe after his graduation, things wouldn’t feel like such a tedious routine. Maybe there’d be some challenge to his work, more than there’d been to his studies. Maybe he’d make a great discovery, something he could truly be proud of and boast about.

  If there was one thing Zhao Wei could boast about, that was being one of the last original Chinese citizens left in Taizhou, but it was about all he could boast about. Not his beauty, not his brightness, not the deep green eyes... Not any single one of his attributes – physical or mental – were random. His parents, both coming from old Chinese families, had taken the route all rich parents now took and had opted for their child to be a designer baby. The only thing they had not modified – at least not beyond recognition – was the nationality traits: the slanted eyes; the pale tan tone of his skin, made only softer and smoother; and the black hair, made stronger and silkier.

  In his youth, Wei had mourned about this often. His enhanced attributes had not helped him stand out in a community that was filled with other designer children. Being the smartest among the smartest had brought no solace then, and still brought none to this day. There was no challenge to studying, no real advancements to be made. He had only to read things once to remember them. But so did almost everyone else. Even those who ‘struggled’ got good grades.

  It wasn’t that he wanted to fail, of course, but everything was so... monotonous.

  Wei pulled his face back from the spray and rubbed the water off, trying to bring his mind back to the present. He washed his hair and body, called the water off while he reached for a towel, and patted his strong body dry. Routine as always, he brushed his teeth, brushed his hair, relieved himself, and left the bathroom, the light turning off automatically behind him.

  Naked as he was, he went to the windows. The sky was blue and clear as the AI had said, the only visible clouds were far beneath them, dark and ominous, obscuring the uninhabitable surface of their world. His gaze briefly focused not on the sky and buildings outside, nor even on the pods flying between them, but on his reflection on the glass.

  He’d been designed to be beautiful, yet what Wei saw in the reflection was not beauty. He didn’t consider himself ugly, either, he was just... average. Like everyone else.

  Pulling away from the window and the sight of the morning sky, he headed to his dresser. He selected a plain set of light gray pants, a white short sleeved shirt, and a white and gray jacket to go on top. He slipped on the clothes, grabbed a hair band, and tied his long hair into a low ponytail. He pulled the ends of his sleeves and ran his hands through the front to remove any wrinkles.

  The wall to his right came to life, a screen appearing over the surface, reading “incoming call.” The AI voice accompanied the signal, announcing in its warm, friendly tone, “you have an incoming call from: Mom.”

  Wei sighed, promptly put on his best fake smile, and waved his hand in front of the screen to accept the video call.

  “Hello, mother,” he greeted the woman on the screen. She looked not much older than himself – her wealth and the ever-advancing discoveries in medicine and genetics kept her looking young and beautiful, and kept her mind sharp. How much money had she spent on those treatments? Wei could understand the desire to keep her health and her mind, but he had never understood why beauty and youthful looks were such an important thing to everyone.

  “Ah, my little Wei! I thought I would miss you,” she said cheerfully. “Your father and I just wanted to congratulate you again on such an important day, we’re really sorry we can’t make it to your graduation, oh, we would’ve loved to be there, but this meeting has just been dragging...” She let out an exaggerated sigh. “You’re making us really proud. It’s not every day a son graduates as a genetic engineer.”

  Wei held back from saying that it was practically every day such a thing happened. Genetics were hardly a rare field anymore. It hadn’t been for years. He chose to take the words for what they were: a compliment.

  “Thank you.” His gaze fell on the clock on the bottom of the screen. There was still enough time to get there, but he didn’t want to linger on the call. “I do apologize mother, but I need to go already if I don’t want to be late.”

  “Of course! You can’t be late to your own graduation,” she smiled. “We’ll call you again soon, darling.”

  “Goodbye mother.”

  Just as it’d come on, the screen flickered off and Wei headed for the door. It slid open as he approached and closed behind him when he passed it, locking on its own.

  The walk from his apartment to the docking platform wasn’t long; the corridor opened to a large terrace with a garden full of greenery and pathways. The height at which they were from the ground required these open areas to be enclosed in a secure glass dome, but within they had their own mini-climate, currently nice and pleasant and summer-like, just as the weather readout had said. The sight from the terrace was of the beautiful clear blue skies, the pristine w
hite buildings like the one he lived in, and the pods flying to and from.

  As he walked down the paths, Wei passed several other people, all dressed in whites and muted grays. They greeted him cordially, but no one stopped to talk. Further ahead, two people were standing in front of a holographic screen. Coming closer, Wei could see it was a news report they were watching. He didn’t stop, but he watched in passing.

  “–despite best efforts, they were unable to save his life.” The female reporter informed. “The head of division said they would now be implementing new security measurements for all workers attempting repairs on any levels below three.”

  The image switched to that of a handsome, older man. “If toxicity levels continue to increase, we might be forced to find a new way to support our city. We might even consider moving higher. We’ve been developing a new...”

  One of the watchers gasped slightly. “Can you believe that?”

  Wei walked on. He could believe it. Things had been difficult as of late on lower levels. Wei had never even gone close to the clouds. People of his status had little to do on the lower levels, which, rumor had, were now mostly inhabited just by those working on repairs just over and under the clouds.

  Other than those, no one from Taizhou had gone there; or at least, no one Wei knew personally; but he’d heard plenty of things. Heard about the barren lands devoid of life, how the toxicity of the air had made it impossible for anyone to settle there. Any workers sent down there had to go with special suits and breathing equipment, go into the almost permanent darkness due to the thick clouds. Indeed, above the clouds was the city of the gods, the sky city where all the well-off and wealthy lived. The wealthier you were, the higher the level at which you lived. Below the clouds there was nothing of worth, except for the foundations of their cities.

  Had they not needed to keep those in constant repair, Wei thought no one would have dared go below the clouds. It was no wonder there was talk of them developing strong engines to keep the cities floating without the need of their foundations.

  Walking to the end of the terrace Wei reached a glass division. He looked at the impenetrable dark clouds below, frowning. It was an entirely different view from above. He’d been taught in school it was pollution that made the clouds so dark and thick, making the ground impossible to see – though he’d often wondered if he was even likely to see it from that height.

  What was it really like down below? Wei had wondered this many times as he grew up and still did now. Was it truly as devoid of life as they claimed or was there anything left salvageable of the former earth?

  His pondering was but an idle fantasy, he knew. He would never have dared go, nor would he have been allowed. You needed a special kind of permit for that, one that wasn’t easily attainable, and you needed to be a special kind of person to want to risk your life for the good of the city. Besides, only bad things happened to people who went that far below. Wasn’t it recently that the announcement had come of two lower level workers having never returned? They’d been presumed dead. And before that, a worker had returned sick. They’d had to quarantine him. Wei was certain he’d heard the worker had died from exposure to the toxic wasteland.

  There was nothing down there for someone like him.

  The secure double glass doors that separated the terrace from the docking platform slid open as Wei approached them, and once again closed behind him. A gust of wind caught him off-guard, but he pushed onwards to the pods awaiting a user. The pods, flying vehicles shaped like seeds, could be used by anyone from the upper levels. There were bigger ones to carry more than one person, and smaller ones, for just one or two. Wei picked the closest smaller one and once inside, buckled up the seatbelts and called his destination.

  The engine came on silently and the pod slid smoothly to the exit, leaving the building and joining the pre-programmed path that would lead him to his graduation. While the pod made its way through the sky, Wei used the onboard computer to pull up a few articles for reading. He was quite deep into an article about the proposed new engines when he felt the sudden jerk of his pod coming to a stop, an automatic response to avoid collision before a new path was programmed. His gaze lifted, expecting to find another stopped pod, but his eyes widened as what he saw instead was a much larger pod... ramming straight into his.

  His vehicle was sent flying backwards. Inside the cabin alarms blared, and red lights flashed. Wei gasped as his body floated forwards instead, pulling hard on the seatbelts – the only thing that prevented him from flying right out of the pod – and making his entire body ache. Then another strong jerk whipped his head harshly once more, making his gaze darken. With the last bit of conscious effort, Wei tried to grasp for something. Anything. As if that could stop the fall at all. His pod started a spiraling trip downwards, falling, down past the clouds and into the darkness below, until it finally crashed hard against the ground.

  Chapter 2

  Oren had seen the whole thing, heard the whole thing. How could anyone have missed it?

  The crash was heard first, despite happening somewhere high above the clouds. It’d been a portentous sound, not unlike the rumbling of the monthly thunderstorms they normally had, though shorter. However, no storm had been forecast in the news. Oren had been running so fast, that when everyone in the vicinity stopped in their tracks, he nearly stumbled on two people who had been walking in front of him. He managed to stop short of them and, like everyone else, lifted his gaze to the sky in search of signs of the storm, or of whatever had made the sound.

  Then, the pod poofed from right between the clouds. Oren’s lips parted in awe as he watched the vehicle whistle the entire way down until it crashed with a deafening sound, somewhere to the east of the city, not far from where he was. The ground shook under his feet, a brief wave caused by the impact.

  A lot of trash came from the sky, but it was usually from high-flying ships that did who-knew-what up above in the higher levels of the buildings. Some maintenance work, more than likely. Oren had never seen something come literally from beyond the clouds, though he knew that was where Sky City was – the place where all the rich folk lived, pretending they didn’t exist. He’d heard of things like this happening in the past, but he’d never witnessed it himself. Never thought he would, either.

  His gaze returned to the people around him. Some exchanged little looks, everyone seemed uneasy. No one wanted to have anything to do with it, and so most slowly started on their way to their daily chores once more. Whatever that vehicle that had crashed was, it likely meant only troubles to them. Nothing good ever came from Sky City.

  But Oren didn’t understand how people could ignore such a thing. What if there was someone inside the pod, and they were still alive? Logic said no one would have survived such a fall; no doubt the Reapers would be there soon, both the Reapers seeking usable pieces of the machinery for later resale, and the ones seeking for something else... something like viable organs...

  Neither would care if there were survivors.

  But Oren did.

  He looked back in the direction of the crash, pursing his lips. Despite how unlikely it was for anyone to have survived, Oren couldn’t just let it be. He was close enough, and he was fast; he could make the run there and get out before the Reapers arrived. He had to try.

  He ran in that direction, until the crowds of people started dwindling as he neared the eastern outskirts of the city.

  The pod had landed on a thankfully mostly uninhabited area- crashing right against a crumbling, abandoned building that had seen better days, even compared with the average buildings one could find in that downtrodden place. It looked positively ruined. The metal from the side it’d been crashed into had lost its smooth shape and was now sharp edges and pointy corners. The tinted glass had shattered inwards, but not broken off, designed to stay as one unit even after impact. The once white paint had been chipped in several places; there were scuffs, dents and marks everywhere. The opposite side had suffered a s
imilar fate. It’d broken off part of a wall and floor, and rubble was all around it.

  Oren slowed down, treading carefully as he approached the area where the door was supposed to be. It would normally be flush against the body of the pod, the transition seamless; yet damaged as the vehicle was, the door, bent at the middle, jutted out at an angle. He gingerly pressed a hand to it, it was warm, but bearable.

  Cautious, he knocked against it, but no sound came from inside.

  Oren slipped his fingers in the space between door and pod and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. He let out a soft curse under his breath and, bracing his feet on the ground, he pulled again. Nothing. Dammit, if someone was alive in there, they wouldn’t have much more time. He looked around, not seeing any signs of Reapers yet, but they were surely not far. Deciding to give it another go, he lifted a foot to the side of the vehicle and tried again, using the full weight of his body to pull one last time. With a loud sound, the door opened... and Oren jumped back just in time to avoid it falling on him. He panted, placing his hands on his knees for a moment, before looking up. As if on cue, sparks flew from the interior. The lights and the holographic screen, all flashing red, came to life and out again, critically damaged. And there, in the seat, banged up and bleeding, dangling from the seatbelts, the most beautiful man Oren had ever laid eyes on.

  Oren stared at him, his breath catching. The long luscious black hair tied back, some locks falling over the delicate features; the soft-looking, though now dirtied skin, and his lips...

  Another set of sparks came from behind one of the screens, bringing Oren back to the present.

  “Damn...” was the guy even breathing? The display on one of Oren’s eyes came alive at a blink, providing all sorts of information about the status of what he was seeing, but Oren focused it on the man. It scanned him, locating all points of injuries and looking for life signs. The word flashed on the screen in his eye: ALIVE. The man was alive, he was just unconscious.