The Opening

1

Brev had been walking for several days, always heading north. He had avoided villages and hamlets, he knew he was now close to his goal.

As long as the rumor was true.

                In the pouch hanging from his belt, he had only two buckwheat flatbreads and almost nothing to drink. He had no luggage; he was confident that if he reached his destination, he would have no need for what he had left behind.
Moi
                The deadly light of the sun, however, worried him greatly. Since the Earth's magnetic field had become too weak to block the sun's harmful radiation, every hour spent away from the protection of a water roof increased the risk of contracting a fatal tumor. He tried to move around most often at night, but this was almost impossible when the moon remained hidden by the fog banks. Lately, this had always been the case.

                Around midday, tired of walking, Brev stopped for a few minutes in the shade of a rock surrounded by shrubs. A thick gray dust covered his sun-tanned body, which was wielded to hard work. Sweat was plastering his shiny black hair on his forehead. He observed the desolate landscape around him; burnt grass as far as the eye could see, punctuated here and there by clumps of heather. In the past, according to what his uncle had told him, the sea went far inland, but it had receded a long time ago. The young man tried to make out the stretch of water on the horizon to the west—in vain.

                As he nibbled his last flatbread, a doubt seized him: what if he had been mistaken? If those people he was—what if they did not exist? He did not know anyone who had been in direct contact with the Coinès. The little he knew about this community, he got it from merchants who had spent a night on the family farm.

                To silence his hesitation, Brev rubbed his sore legs and set off again, this time choosing to head a little further west, where the mainland ended. He had never seen the sea.

                As he went on, not only did he feel that he had made a mistake in leaving his family, but he also had a premonition of imminent danger. Something was wrong here, and this was surrounding him, following him. He stopped, his senses on alert. Without knowing exactly why, he felt he had to flee: he looked around him but saw nothing that justified his anxiety.

                He rationalized, remembering the hope that his mother, weak and worn out like all the people over forty he knew, had placed in him since he was a child. The family farm came back to his mind, with the dozen miserable people who lived there, their eyes reddened, the hunger and the hard work. If he did not outdo himself, he would never know if the Coinès really existed. He set off again, attentive, expecting to see at any moment danger coming from the air or from behind a rock.

                In the distance, Brev saw a human form leaning over a gray machine. He approached slowly, overcoming his desire to run away. If it's someone from here, he'll be able to inform me, he thought. He carried no weapon but a sturdy knife, a salvaged blade mounted on a synthetic resin handle. He made sure that the blade was along his thigh, and forced himself forward.

                The other man bent over a machine—a mover—and did not seem to hear him coming. He was talking to himself aloud, in a language Brev did not recognize. The mover was obviously not working and its owner was trying to make it start up with vigorous taps.

                Brev cleared his throat before greeting in his native language. The man turned his head, surprised but not frightened. Brev felt his pulse quicken as he noticed the man's bare feet, his clean, neatly folded clothes, his short, tidy beard, and especially his very pale skin, which was not used to being exposed to sunlight. His hair was as dark as Brev's, only slightly longer.

                He stood up: his tall stature was imposing; he was only a few years older than Brev. This is one of them, Brev thought. The man with the mover frowned, and looked from head to toe at the boy who now faced him. He hesitated for a second, then, using the same language as Brev, but with some difficulty, he replied: 

"Greetings to you. Do you know how to fix this mover? I do not know much about it."

"Let me have a look."

                It was a machine that had already been used a lot, but Brev had never seen one like it. However, he noticed a bad contact with one of the batteries. "The problem is here, I could solder. Do you have any tools?"

                "No, I regret."

                "Well, I'll try something, but I can't promise you anything."

                While Brev tried to fix the mover, the man in the elaborate clothes watched him carefully and finally asked: "How far are you going?"

                "I've been walking north for almost thirty days." The moment seemed right to Brev, he took a deep breath and continued. "I am looking for the Coinès. It is said that they are around here."

                The other did not comment.

                Brev felt his heart ready to burst out of his chest because it was beating so hard, and the bad feeling he had started to feel a little earlier still had not left him. "Here, the fix should hold just enough to get you home." He hesitated, then dared to ask the question that had been burning in his brain. "How much farther do you have to go?"

                The man did not answer and stared at him, his mind busy with something else. Long seconds passed, before he finally asked Brev: "Are you not afraid?"

                "I beg your pardon?"

                "Do you not feel that something is wrong, that danger is about to come upon you?"

                Surprised at being so well guessed, Brev chose to be honest. "Yes, but I don't know exactly why."

                "And yet, you are going ahead with it?"

                "Absolutely."

                The barefooted man turned his mover on, sat down on it. The device rose few centimeters above the ground. He's leaving, Brev thought in panic. Instead of driving away, he spoke to him again. "The fear you feel is absolutely normal. It is caused by our defense system that induces in your mind a bad premonition. Nobody resists it. Almost everyone turns back." Noticing that the young man was still not moving, he seemed surprised. "Are you not coming with me?"

                Brev thought he had not heard him right, but since the mover was not taking off, he hurried to sit behind the light-skinned man.

                "What are you called?" ask the older one.

                 "Brev."

                The mover hovered with a little whirring sound.

                "Good. I am Sünori."