Resistance: Divided Elements (Book 1)

by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky

  Moments later, she senses him next to her, but still she keeps her eyes ahead – trained on the wall nine, eight, seven metres in front of her. Just when it seems momentum will carry her into the solid mass, she launches herself at it – fingers reaching out and gaining traction on the uneven surface. Her boots push against the wall, propelling her upwards until she balances on its narrow ledge.

  Anaiya’s centre of gravity is perfectly aligned – her right foot grounded; her left untethered but stable. Momentum wants to carry her forwards; her arched back holds her steady.

  She steals a glance at Niamh, who balances beside her. He flashes a familiar wicked grin back and they leap together from the tangible mass of the wall. Anaiya’s body curls, turning a full revolution and sending the world into a kaleidoscope of fractured, off-centred images. Her feet hit the roof of the adjoining building half a second before Niamh’s, launching her into a dive towards the next obstacle.

  And so it continues. She and Niamh free-running with flair and speed across the Eastern Cardinal Area of the city.

  As their destination nears, Anaiya feels herself pushing harder. A vague sense of urgency – a subtle electric shock – shivers along her nervous system, and her body responds in turn. Her legs stretch farther and her hands grasp higher, her tic tacs becoming more difficult, her passements more dangerous.

  If she can just win this time…prove that she can be better.

  Can be the best.

  She had been the best. Once.

  Niamh is matching her efforts, threatening to pull ahead. She pushes harder, delves deeper – dredging the rapidly depleting reserves of energy in her core. The effort burns, a physical pain that threatens to pull her out of flow. She ignores it, refines her focus, channels the pain into something useful.

  The Precinct 3 marker, a thin column of composite steel, pierces the street not twenty metres away. The need in her flares, her desperation sharpens. A final burst of speed pushes her forwards. The metal marker brushes her shoulder as she clears it, its surface cool and unyielding.

  But not before Niamh.

  Niamh is first.

  Niamh is always first.

  He has come to a stop ten metres or so ahead of her. Anaiya slows to a jog in response, eventually shifting to a slow, deliberate walk before crouching down in a squat. It takes her longer than it should to shake off the disappointment and frustration that threatens to grow in her rib cage.

  Anaiya has never liked losing, but losing to Niamh has lately grown a sharper edge.

  She battles it, focussing instead on her breathing. Her wristplate flashes as her vital readings count down from her accelerated state to normal. She glances up, a small sense of tainted satisfaction blooming at seeing Niamh still in a recovery position. He looks over at her and grins. Her satisfaction evaporates.

  Looking down at her wristplate, she scrolls to the alert. Without waiting for Niamh, she starts off in a jog towards their ultimate destination. Behind her, Niamh’s low-pitched chuckle grows and bounces off the nearby walls. The spiky feeling erupts again, harder this time to ignore. She shakes her head forcefully to clear her mind, careful to maintain her pace.

  He catches up to her moments later. The tension in Anaiya’s mind and body is smaller now, less threatening. The two of them stay silent, easing into a familiar synchronicity, matching pace as they work their way towards Le Marais.

  Anaiya hears the street party before she sees it. Loud, dense beats pulsate among bright notes and trance-inducing melodies. Squeals of delight and peals of laughter fill the gaps: a hundred Air Elementals crowd a small laneway. Tattered polyester lounges are scattered about the space, occupied by Elementals sipping basic cocktails, engaging in deep conversation and various levels of personal intimacy. Around them, other Elementals dance and skip and twirl – vibrant swathes of multi-coloured material transformed into a moving visual feast.

  Anaiya sees the same emotional abandon in the whirling of Air Elementals as in the debauchery of Earth Elementals. As a Fire Elemental, she can understand the thirst and demand for action that characterises the Earth Element, but she has never understood the cerebral ways of the Air Element – their obsession with thoughts and ideas and emotions is entirely alien to her.

  “Time to shut it down,” she says to Niamh.

  “Time to shut it down,” he confirms.

  * * *

  THE NEARBY POWER sub-station is easily identifiable amongst the flamboyant infrastructure of the laneway. Accessing the control panel with a swipe of his wristplate, Niamh connects his lifeline and flicks the heavy white switch. Immediately, the sound and lights of the laneway, and the surrounding three blocks of streets, are killed.

  The two Peacekeepers waste no time advancing on the gathering.

  Anaiya free-runs to the back end of the laneway, repelling off walls and launching off lounges and tables, to reach the exit before too many Air Elementals can disperse.

  “This is a Code 545 violation,” she begins, her voice loud and authoritative. She can hear it echo as Niamh, at the opposite end of the laneway, calls out the same edict. “Organised Public Gatherings of more than ten Elementals in non-residential spaces, unless duly authorised, are strictly forbidden. Cease and desist all activities and await processing. Attendees will be Cautioned. Organisers will be Detained.”

  She stands lightly on the balls of her feet, ready for the inevitable runner. She’s not disappointed – there are flashes of movement to her left as two Trainee Elementals rush forwards. Anaiya smiles. The fire that had burned after losing to Niamh has found a new target.

  The first Trainee, a straggly looking male Anaiya has pegged as a Music Composer, practically trips over his own feet as he tries to evade Anaiya’s counter-advance. With a clean hit, she sends him buckling to the laneway stones, turning smoothly to land a roundhouse kick on the chest of the second runner. The female grunts at the impact, her olive skin turning pale, her eyes widening in surprise. She collapses, clutching at her fractured collarbone. Anaiya will tag them later.

  An older female strides forwards, scowling at Anaiya and the disabled Trainees. Her stance is combative and her eyes give Anaiya no doubt that she wants to claw shreds of skin off her.

  Anaiya smiles and shakes her head – a simple sweep of her head left to right.

  The small action has the desired effect. The older female hurls a gob of spit at Anaiya, the harmless projectile hitting Anaiya’s shoulder. Anaiya steps in, one hand wiping the spit from her shoulder, the other grabbing her assailant’s wrist at heart point six, disabling her arm and triggering a loud cry of pain.

  “Uh-uh,” Anaiya says, reaching for a syringe at her belt.

  The female grunts – a deep guttural sound that widens Anaiya’s smile.

  “Fucking fascist Fire –”

  The Air Elemental doesn’t get a chance to finish. Anaiya’s syringe enters her neck without resistance, sliding down into the trapezius and ejecting the restraint serum in one fluid movement.

  * * *

  THE REST of the gathering is processed over the course of an hour. After the last Air Elemental has been cautioned and the Detainers have removed restrained Elementals for further processing, the site is turned over to Earth Elementals for waste and debris removal.

  “Drink?” Niamh asks.

  Anaiya checks her wristplate. It is close to midnight – their shift ended over an hour ago. The thought of burying tired limbs and erratic thoughts underneath a flood of synthetic alcohol is tempting, but an adrenalin surge is still tearing along her veins. And there’s a tension with Niamh she can’t quite shake.

  All she wants to do is run. “Pass.”

  Niamh shrugs. “OK, Ani. Control the fire.”

  She appreciates the sentiment in the familiar Fire Elemental farewell, but the reminder is unnecessary. Anaiya is nothing if not disciplined.

  The thought is less comforting than it used to be.

  She doesn’t watch as Niamh departs the scene, turning in t
he opposite direction and setting off in a slow jog. The sound of her footfalls strips away her thoughts. With each step, she increases her rhythm until the streets and buildings of Precinct 3 are a blur beneath her feet and hands. Obstacles and inconvenient infrastructure become ideal props for her kash vaults and cat jumps, her body pulling as much joy from the Eastern Area precincts as it can before it reaches the kilometre-wide perimeter that separates the city from its Border Wall and the Wasteland beyond.

  Eventually, the sparse buildings of the outer precincts give way to the fat cylindrical air recyclers that signal the beginning of the Edges. Massive concrete behemoths whose depths extend for hundreds of metres below the ground, they groan constantly with the tedium of inhaling and digesting the polluted air of Otpor. The hum of their turbines mixes with the blood and footfalls in her ears, mimicking the sound of a thousand synthflies beating triple wings against rotund bodies.

  Anaiya shifts her trajectory early to circumnavigate them without losing speed. With the squat structures at her back, the Border Wall finally settles into focus. She reaches the base of the wall within minutes, glancing up just once to search for the silent, invisible Watchers before commencing a meditative zigzag jog through the nearby cluster of industrial structures. Seconds stretch into minutes, the rhythmic beat of her footfalls and heavy shadows working to empty her mind of all thought.

  For a long time all she is aware of is the constant sound, the comforting jolt, of one foot after the other slamming against the densely packed gravel.

  And then she hears it. A discordant sound catching in her ears – a plaintive mewling that sets itself apart from the noise of her feet, that distinguishes itself from the sounds of the river and air recyclers.

  Deviating from her normal course, she lets her ears guide her, following the sound through the maze of maintenance infrastructure that dominates the landscape. Her eyes dart around the unfamiliar space, seeking out unexpected movement. With each step, she grows more confident of what she will find, the strange noise growing in volume and clarity.

  Turning a sharp corner ahead, Anaiya’s eyes fix on a low-lying mass of heaving fur, easily found beneath the flickering lights of the water sub-station. She approaches cautiously.

  The bitch is in labour. Her dark, patchy fur is slick with sweat and her emaciated frame swells and shrinks with each choked gasp. Black eyes are punctuated with the erratic light from above. Feral dogs, like most mammals, are not common in the city. Most find their way through gaps in the Border Wall to suffer their fate in the Wasteland. But occasionally, out here in the Edges, a few still stalk for meagre meals of rats and scraps.

  Anaiya watches as the dog suffers through its delivery – a small litter of four pups expelled over the course of twenty minutes. The first quickly attaches itself to the bitch’s underbelly, desperate to sustain what little life still beats beneath sticky fur. The next two stumble wearily and collapse to the dark bitumen with barely a whimper. The runt emerges lifeless.

  The chaos, so typical of the animal kingdom, disgusts Anaiya. It is so inefficient, so vastly inferior to the structured order of Elemental life. In Otpor, all Pre-forms are anonymously hatched in the state’s Nursery. There are no families, no dependents – no gene lottery that is natural procreation, and no social constructs tethering adults to Premies. The eradication of familial bias leaves only pure loyalty – to Otpor, to the Orthodoxy, and to one’s Element.

  But dogs are not Elementals.

  Anaiya turns and walks away. The bitch would die within the hour and the surviving pup, cut off from its life source, would die with her, from starvation or at the jaws of a hundred merciless rats frenzied at the promise of a decent meal.

  A mother was all a pup had. There were no Fire Elementals in a dog’s world that would guarantee peace, no Water Elementals to find solutions, no Earth Elementals to keep the wheels of progress turning, no Air Elementals to inspire and teach Orthodoxy. Dogs were not conditioned to their natural element – they ran scattered and haphazard. And died alone in deserted streets.

  Heading west towards her apartment in Precinct 5, Anaiya shuns her usual free-running speed for a slower pace, debating whether to join Niamh after all. The lights of the Edges cast long shadows on the road and Anaiya moves between them, the shifting from light to dark reminiscent of the flickering sub-station light. So close to the air recyclers, she can trail her hand against their concrete form and feel their vibrations. Their shells are cold and rough to her touch, abrasive and indifferent. She unlatches her lifeline and patches a call to Niamh.

  “Talk to me,” he says. In the background she can hear other voices.

  “You still up for that dri–”

  The texture beneath her left hand has changed, the feel now wet and slick. She pulls it away from the recycler’s frame.

  “Ani?”

  She presses a button on her wristplate to activate the diode; a bright white light hitting the recycler and shining in the glossy swathe of paint that covers it. She walks backwards, her light growing to encompass the entire surface area.

  “Niamh?” Her voice pitches high on the first syllable, wavers on the last.

  “Ani, what is it?” The background noises recede.

  “I’m sending you my coordinates, I need you to get here as fast as you can. Alone.”

  A brief chime signals that he has disconnected his lifeline and severed the communication. Anaiya flashes her light across the road to the nearest recycler. The beam wavers as small tremors attack her hands.

  Schooling her trembling hands to still, she shines the light again at the recycler. At its base, she finds its coordinates etched in the concrete and messages them to Niamh.

  Bracing herself, she turns back around. The harsh light picks up the thick covering of paint. The smell is foreign to her, the Co-op having ceased the manufacture of paint after the introduction of coloured polyenamaline more than four generations before her conception. It has a sharp and slightly sweet scent, hinting at its synthetic origins, but more bitter and pungent than those she has previously encountered.

  The mural rises the full ten metres of the recycler and spreads across the facing half of its circumference. The image is vivid – a crumbling set of black flames, rendered with streaks of grey and white to appear as fragile structures of charcoal and ash. Dead fire. She forces her attention to the large red lettering that dominates the bottom metre of the mural. Her heart rate spikes momentarily, but she does not flinch.

  RESISTANCE.

  The word burns as if a hot brand has taken to her pupils.

  She can’t look away. She knows, instinctively, that if she closes her eyes, the word will appear like a negative imprint in the darkness.

  A forbidden word. One of the few that shall not be spoken. It thickens her tongue and tightens her throat just thinking about it.

  Anaiya wants to retch.

  Where are you, Niamh?

  She exhales slowly and turns her light off. Unwilling to stand in the deep shadow, she moves to where the light of the city touches the road. She scans the area for the perpetrator, but there are no tracks and no signs of anyone else still lurking. She returns to the recycler.

  Five minutes, ten minutes. Her eyes move constantly to her wristplate, gauging the time, waiting for Niamh’s call. Old memories, sharp and sticky, are making their way up through her mind. She bats them away.

  Fifteen minutes.

  And then she hears the footfalls of someone running at pace. Coming into view, Niamh pulls up short, looking around but finding no conflict. He settles into a slow jog, his eyes on Anaiya, the confusion clear on his face.

  Before he speaks, Anaiya turns back to the recycler and lets her diode light it up.

  Niamh falls still beside her. “Any intel?” he finally asks.

  Anaiya shakes her head. “I was on my return and just found it. No presence or movement. The Edges were clear.” Her voice is steadier now.

  “It will have to be handled discreetly,�
� Niamh says, eyes still trained on the image. “You can’t be here when the Forensics come, Ani.”

  The memories return. It’s almost ten years since the first, and last, case of Heterodoxy. Since the Public Execution of Kane 148.

  His name skitters through her mind. A name she will not speak aloud, that is still reviled even if it is not forbidden.

  She nods absently, her feet still rooted to the spot, her mind circling with thoughts of Resistance and Heterodoxy and Execution.

  “Ani!”

  She snaps out of the mind loop.

  “You have to leave now, Anaiya. You can’t be connected to this at all.”

  TWO

  OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, rumours of Heterodoxy filter through the Fire Element like embers, flashing bright and dying quickly to leave a thin veil of ash that rises and stirs with every prompt. Despite direct sightings being limited and a need-to-know protocol strictly enforced, the mere suggestion that Heterodoxy has resurfaced brings a new energy – a strange anticipation and aggression – to the Peacekeeper Corp.

  The mood among Anaiya’s peers is tense and excited and thirsty.

  It puts her on edge.

  She checks her wristplate again, scrolling past the numerous sent messages and unanswered calls to Niamh, frustrated at the lack of communication.

  From their most recent discussion, she knows another three murals have since surfaced, spread out across disparate precincts that transcend Elemental and geographic divides. But that was a week ago. Since then, Niamh has been hard to find. Like rumours of Heterodoxy, Peacekeepers whisper about a promotion in recognition of his finding the first case.

  Nothing comes between Niamh and his ambition. Not even the truth.

  She grimaces at the unfair assessment. After all, she had readily agreed that they should delete her involvement in the discovery. It was a win–win situation: Anaiya avoided unwanted and inevitable scrutiny; Niamh gained a promotion.

  A loud whoop of excitement pulls her out of her heavy thoughts, her eyes focussing on the lithe figure ahead bouncing off crumbling Otpor walls.