Radiance

The sun crept through the alleyway, dusting the cracked and decrepit red brick wall with light. It was beautiful how it framed the decades old graffiti that had been left there. It was as if it were a piece of artwork hanging in a gallery show room, effortlessly portraying the lives of those who lived before me. I was grateful for sunny days. Most days were smog filled overcast and broken dreams; it was the sun that gave me hope. I lie there still, eyes squinted up at this urban galleria as the sun prowled its way into my eyes. A beam of light fell on my forehead forcing me awake. I flipped my body over on its side pressing my hands on the earth beneath me to lift my weighted body up. Beneath my dirt filled fingernails rustled layers of oversized black trash bags and old newspapers, My bed.

With my back now leaning against the warm brick wall I looked down, fiercely grabbing at my heart shaped locket. I woke up head perspiring and heart racing with a tingle in my belly at the thought of it missing. I wondered, what if it fell off or some stray creatures come to rip it off. These ideas were absurd as I hadn’t seen much of anything alive roaming the surface in months. Was I the last I often pondered with a tight chest? But as quickly as the thought came, I pushed it out of my head. The sun had found its way to my locket as well. It glorified the tiny little heart creating highlights of crimson rust and green decay as the small metal shield had begun to patina.

I kept it close to me as my creator always told me how important it was to keep it close and keep it closed until my mission. She’d say to me, girl one day you are going to save the world! The wind wisped by me, and I let me eyes close to take in the moment. For a second it felt like she was here with me again. I puffed up my chest sucking in as much air as I possibly could into my nostrils and then releasing it with a be sigh that melted into a smile. I felt I could smell her perfume in the breeze, hear her jolly laugh carried through the wind. She was short and round with deep beautiful brown skin and coarse hair that hung in thick curls below her chin which housed a bright white toothy grin above it. She had a button nose and almond shaped hazel eyes that always seemed to glimmer in the light. She was brilliant, one of the smartest people I have ever met! The memory faded as I peeked through my eyelids almost expecting, hoping rather that when I opened them, she would be standing at the edge of the alleyway telling me it’s time to come back home. This was a dream, there was no home, and my creator was gone leaving me alone. She called me Radiance, and I was grateful to be given such a name.

I kept thinking of what she said in my head, that someday I would save the world. How could I possibly save this desolate place of emptiness and despair? I didn’t understand but I had to try to stick to my mission as it is what she would have wanted. I always tried to picture her when she was full of youth and health, but the memories that often crept in my mind are those of her last days when she fell ill… when they all fell ill. Unfortunately, I can see it like a movie replaying in my head as clearly as the day it happened, and then suddenly I’m back there again where it all began.

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“Radiance, run!” my creator, Mary, yelled as she struggled to push her body through two stocky built men in green camouflage uniforms holding automatic rifles. I ran as fast as I could sprinting in any direction tears burning through my eyelids as I looked around me. The bleeding sky was an ominous orange and red color, pouring acidic rain from the dark gray clouds that floated in the abyss. Smoke clouds flew up as bombs landed on the pavement. Metal machines with thin blades swirled above my head with ladders that released more green army men into the city. The air was dry and stiff but in it were the sounds of children crying as they were ripped from their parent’s arms. Frantically running in all directions people hid to save themselves from the skin deteriorating rain. This had happened to Mary as well.

The night before I had sat at the edge of her bed staring at her sickly pale face. Her reptilian skin had groves that were reminiscent of a cracked dessert. Her once beautiful grin had faded, replaced with a grimace and menacing looks. She was in a lot of pain and had trouble keeping down food. I had vowed to take care of her, but she told me that soon I would have to leave her to go on a very important mission to help the world. I felt like she wanted to protect me from the inevitable future that was soon to be bestowed on our world.

She gave me a tiny heart shaped locket and told me to keep it closed and safe around my neck, emphasizing how important it was for me to make it to her research center in Africa. I was also given a small backpack with a map and a brochure on the research facility and its location. She told me to stay hidden and not let anyone stop me. She assured me that I would understand everything including how important I was in due time. I was scared and I didn’t understand how I would travel from North America all the way to Africa alone. I was only a girl and had not lived very long on the surface. Soon I would have no choice as the very next day everything changed.

I kept running as fast as I could through the chaos. I never understood why the acidic rain never affected me, but I ran until I found a metal dumpster to hide in. My heart was beating quickly in my chest, and I could feel the sweat tingling down my spine, I heard gun shots and people screaming and the pattering of the cruel rain on the dumpster lid.

I could not get a sense of time, or days, or how many sun-falls and sun rises I counted peeking through the crack of the dumpster, knees pulled to my chest. I could feel myself shutting down as I sometimes did when I was scared. But when I finally lifted my hands and pushed up pressing against the cold heavy metal lid, I saw that there was nothing, but a wasteland left before my eyes. I failed I thought, wiping at my eyes that begun to fill up with tears. Then I felt something cold and smooth on my chest pressing against my skin. It was the locket Mary had given me; it was a symbol of hope. I had to know what she wanted me to find, what she needed me to do. __________________________________________________________________

It had been years since I started this Journey, but I finally found myself waking up in the alleyway of the city Giza, only a few more miles away from the research center. It had been so long that I had hoped it wasn’t destroyed. I began walking in the direction of the research center. This day should be exciting, but I could feel the clammy palms of my hands, my chest tightening, and my pulse racing. I did not know what to expect. What if I had come all this way for nothing?

I finally walked up to a building that looked like the same one on the brochure Mary had given me. I read the words across the top in large letters:

Research Center for Advanced and Unusual Artificial Intelligence Founder and CEO Mary Peterson

I placed my hand to my heart and gasped as my eyes scanned across her name there in bold letters highlighted in the golden rays of the sun. I felt her spirt near me and all the fear I once had washed away.

As soon as I walked in the once dark space suddenly lit up, startled I stumbled backwards a bit catching myself on the door behind me. I was confused. I was now standing in a solid white box with all white walls, but before I could even think a green light began to scan over my body and out of nowhere, I heard a robotic voice say, “Access granted. Welcome back Radiance.”

“Welcome back?” I questioned quite confused as I hadn’t recalled being here before. The all-white box started to lower into the ground. Of course! I thought. It would make sense the research lab was under the surface so that it would be protected. Mary always thought of everything. The box finally came to a stop and one of the white walls slid open. The view in front of my eyes was astonishing.

The very modern space looked brand new compared to the rest of the world. Clean white walls were lined with computers and there were tons of equipment in the center of the room. I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I kept looking around overwhelmed. Scanning the rooms, I finally spotted a large machine that looked like a white tube. In the center of the white tube was a small heart shaped opening the size of my locket.

I looked down at my chest and removed the chain from my neck holding it delicately in my hands. I pressed my fingers around the edges of the little old heart I had kept all these years. I could feel my chest tighten and my breathing grow heavy as I pulled it open. Inside was another little metal heart shaped computer chip. I pulled it out carefully and placed it in the corresponding hole on the big white tube. A screen lit up on the tube and I saw strands of DNA… my DNA I thought. Had I been here before?

I looked down at my forearm, beneath my brown skin on my wrist I had always had a birth mark. It was shiny and metallic looking. Mary used to say that it was one more of my special characteristics. I realized now I was a hybrid. Therefore, the acidic rain did not affect me, this was my birthplace.

I looked back up at the screen. Which now read, configuring Radiance’s DNA into organic cryogenic specimen; completion in 1 hour.

I waited patiently as the machine buzzed and clicked then suddenly on the other end of the tube a smaller tube was pushed out and the door opened. Confused and excited I reached my hands in and pulled the small organic creature out of the cold liquid. My breathing stopped, I felt dizzy but elated with joy as I slid slowly on the floor as my legs were no longer capable of holding me up. I was now holding a small baby tightly in my arms as she started to cry.

I looked down into her hazel brown eyes, she began to smile and wrap her tiny finger around mine, I noticed a metallic birth mark on her wrist.

“There, there I said” pressing the small child tightly against my chest as the heat of tears began to form at my eyelids, this time tears of happiness. This was surreal.

“It is okay little girl,” I said aloud through my grinning teeth, “I shall call you Mary and I will be your mother, you can call me Radiance.”