Resistance: Divided Elements (Book 1)

by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky

  The air tastes sweeter than before, free of the astringent synth chemicals that dominate the Last Defence laboratories. She inhales deeply, drawing the long breath down into her diaphragm and holding it there, feeling it swell within her. And then she exhales slowly, pushing her belly against her spine and squeezing the air from her lungs.

  Footfalls sound in the corridor outside the room, but she keeps her eyes closed and continues her breathing regimen.

  Inhale, hold, exhale.

  The footfalls grow louder.

  Inhale, hold, exhale. Inhale, hold, exhale.

  Slowly she opens her eyes. Details flood her senses. She doesn’t fight them, just lets them wash over her. It is easier this way.

  Less painful.

  She is in her room. Muted afternoon sunlight slants through the west-facing window. The male Technician from the round room stands a metre from her bed, casting long shadows over the bedsheets and Anaiya. He approaches her silently. She takes in his trademark gait, the way his short hair is combed into ordered peaks at the front, the familiar creases at the corner of his violet-tinged eyes.

  With each observation comes the rush of involuntary responses triggered by limbic associations now programmed in her mind. Her chest swells, her heart rate quickens, her skin tingles.

  She doesn’t yet have the words to describe all of the unfamiliar emotions raging through her body, threatening to take her breath away.

  Inhale. Exhale. Hold.

  She rides out their initial assault – pushing them away, building barriers in her mind – until she is a distant observer, assessing them with cold indifference.

  Each transition between her irrational limbic response and her measured neocortex assessment is a victory – a vindication of her innate authenticity as a Fire Elemental, an encouragement that she will survive the realignment intact and be victorious in her ultimate mission.

  The Technician’s touch is gentle as he unwraps her lifeline and plugs it into his screen. She watches his face intently as it fades from the typical studious intent to something more personal. A small smile breaks at his lips, softening his features. Anaiya feels a smile appear on her own lips in immediate response. And then it passes.

  “It worked,” he says in a voice soft and clear.

  She hears the pride in it, the relief.

  “I know,” she says.

  His brow furrows and he appraises Anaiya more deeply. “What does it feel like?”

  He asks it out of professional curiosity, to sate the Water Element’s unyielding quest for knowledge. He asks with the presumption of rational, incisive, clear-headed analysis that he has come to expect from Fire Elementals.

  But how can she articulate the chaos of her mind? Before the realignment, she had known satisfaction and ambition and adrenalin and determination. Clear, sharp emotions that left no residue. The new emotions are different, messier…some heavier and denser, others lighter, more fragile, more brittle. Happiness, sadness, fear – names she has heard from a thousand perpetrators, but never felt herself.

  “It feels different,” she concludes limply.

  The Technician blinks, his smile fading and the distant professionalism reappearing.

  Anaiya feels the warmth drain from her, feels her chest tighten. A split second later, her Fire neocortex steps in to soften the blow. But deep in her subconscious she can feel the sadness still lingering, adding to a collection of things she has wrapped and buried.

  “Your vitals are much better,” the Technician states, reaching down to release her from the restraints. “We weren’t sure whether your mind would recover.”

  Anaiya doesn’t immediately register the admission, her focus taken with her liberated wrists. A heartbeat later it catches in her chest. “You weren’t sure?” She pushes herself up into a sitting position.

  The Technician is once again absorbed in the data flashing on his screen.

  “We obviously knew it would be more complex than the Premie alignment,” he says distractedly. “Premie minds are completely elastic. Their alignment is a natural progression. It conditions the mind, strengthens it.” He looks over at Anaiya. “Alignment does to the mind what physical training does to undeveloped muscles,” he explains. “Juvenile muscles respond readily to alignment and conditioning because it promotes them to an advanced state.”

  Anaiya nods slowly, understanding the truth of what he is saying, but unsure how it relates to her situation.

  Satisfied she is comprehending, the Technician turns back to his screen. “But, obviously, you aren’t a Premie,” he continues. “Your mind has already been conditioned to its optimal state. Realignment takes a mind perfectly conditioned for one function, rapidly undoes that conditioning, and reconditions it to perform optimally in another function. Realignment is like…” He pauses, searching for the right analogy.

  “Training for a marathon, rushing through a recovery and then performing a sprint,” Anaiya finishes for him.

  The Technician nods, accepting her contribution. “Yes. If the predisposition for marathon running is too strong, or the recovery period not sufficient…”

  Anaiya doesn’t hear him finish. She is remembering her third week as a career Peacekeeper. She was so keen to impress, to continue the trajectory she had established as a Trainee, to cement her reputation as a Peacekeeper worthy of note and escape Kane’s legacy.

  An Earth Elemental Trainee, high on dex and still young and fast enough to gather speed, led a pursuit through the Eastern Quarter after hitting an enhancer supply warehouse. Anaiya had been the first to see evidence of the break-in, to identify the perpetrator more than half a kilometre away and to set chase.

  Moments later Niamh caught up to her and was matching her pace for pace. She pushed harder, but it wasn’t enough, and he started to pull ahead. She had pushed harder still, ignoring the strain in her calves, which built to a groan and then to a scream. She had pushed until she caught up to Niamh, both of them fighting as much to beat the other as to catch the perpetrator.

  The pain was sudden, as if an invisible baton had slammed point down into her right calf, rupturing an internal sac and releasing liquid fire up and down her leg. It pulled her up and sent her crashing into the hard pavement of the road; the pain in her damaged arms paled in comparison to the white-hot explosion in her leg. In that instant, she had forgotten about the perpetrator, about Niamh streaking ahead.

  The pain had surrounded her. Consumed her. It took the air from her lungs, speech from her lips, thoughts from her mind. Pain – endless, excruciating pain.

  She had spent four weeks in the Curei Infirmary after Biomechanic Specialists had stitched back the grade three tear and inoculated the calf with repair cells. Four weeks of incapacitation and immobilisation. She had often woken to the sound of Nurses debating whether she would ever run again.

  Could that have happened to her brain? Could Neural Technicians even fix a broken mind?

  “But, it has recovered, hasn’t it?”Anaiya asks, returning to the beginning of their conversation.

  The Technician nods, absorbed by the screen shifting under the incessant flickering of his fingers.

  “As far as we can tell,” he confirms vaguely. “We’ll run a few more tests and conduct some more conditioning over the next few days to increase our degree of confidence.”

  Anaiya lowers herself back onto the bed, sinking her head down into the deep softness of her pillow. The Technician finishes his analysis and exits the room.

  Leaving Anaiya to walk the edges of her mind, testing for cracks.

  EIGHT

  A FUZZY SENSE of anxiety follows Anaiya around for the next week as she is subjected to more procedures, tests, evaluations and simulations – all designed to maintain and strengthen her new limbic brain.

  There is no break in the routine and Anaiya wonders whether her feet are wearing grooves into the polyenameline floors as she traipses back and forth between her room and the 35th floor laboratories.

  Open
ing the door of Laboratory 35.1, she takes a deep breath and prepares herself for the injections and electrodes and analysis machines.

  “Hello, Anaiya 234.”

  The Water Commander from the Code Five briefing in Precinct 8, from another lifetime, stands in the centre of the lab. Flanked by two Technicians, she betrays no interest in Anaiya’s arrival, entirely focussed on the mobile screens flashing before her. Anaiya’s anxiety sharpens, sending synthflies to her belly.

  “Your results show good progress,” the Commander says, not looking up from the screens. “You are ready for the next stage of your realignment.”

  With a flick of her hand, she dismisses the Technicians, before beckoning Anaiya to follow her through to the control room – a small annexure located off the laboratory where the Technicians undertake their observations and analysis.

  “Sit,” she commands, lowering herself into a large, cushioned chair.

  Anaiya takes a seat on one of the nylon office chairs, the situation faintly reminiscent of their last encounter.

  “You’re scheduled for deployment in a few weeks. You will continue realignment strengthening and conditioning, but as of tomorrow you will also commence training for your new competency.”

  It is the moment she has been dreading. As inevitable as it is, the assignment of a new competency will mark the end of her time as a Peacekeeper.

  Temporarily.

  The clarification isn’t as comforting as it should be; ‘temporarily’ has no clear end date.

  “You’ve been assigned as a Sound Creator.”

  The pronouncement catches her off-guard. “Excuse me?”

  The Commander raises a single eyebrow at the interruption. Anaiya’s face flushes with heat. She hadn’t meant to speak up. But she hadn’t expected to be assigned as a Sound Creator, either.

  It was supposed to be Dancer.

  Dancer made more sense – her body and mind were already attuned to the physicality, flexibility and coordination required. It was an easy cover to maintain. It was an easier transition to make.

  “I know nothing about Sound Creation.”

  The familiar sigh is unmistakable. “Hence the training. Which you will commence tomorrow.”

  She waits, narrowing her eyes at Anaiya, clearly communicating she will not tolerate another interruption. Anaiya remains silent, unwilling to give voice to her growing confusion.

  “You will report to the Nursery at 0800 hours, where you will be oriented with hypoxia-affected Air Elementals. That is your backstory. You are not to engage with the other Elementals – you will not be expected to, nor put in a position to. Do you understand?”

  Anaiya nods. Hypoxia is the perfect alibi. Passionate outbursts are typical for Air Elementals – triage rooms consistently fill with dazed Musicians and Graphic Artists who stumble in broken and bloody after intense fights. Head injuries are commonplace and, when they escalate to genuine trauma and oxygen deprivation, brain damage inevitably results in demotion to a lesser competency. Unable to interact in their original environment or derive inspiration from it, affected Elementals are often transferred to new competencies in new Areas.

  “Good. You are dismissed.”

  * * *

  ANAIYA’S FEET fly over the well-worn streets of Precinct 1. The early morning air is cool and still and the path she takes is marked by its absence of Elementals. Warehouses sit idle; their windows dark and flumes silent. Minutes pass and the smell of the river grows stronger. She had never noticed it before her realignment, but now she picks up the individual scents that make up its distinctive smell. The sour tang, the musty undertones.

  Ahead, the walls of the Nursery loom into view and, this close, she can hear the sounds of hundreds of Elemental Pre-forms; laughing, crying, yelling, playing. Next year they will be tested and aligned. A year later they will spend their final year at the Nursery, the final year of their first lustrum, being conditioned to their Element. And then another generation will be created, and the cycle will begin again.

  Anaiya’s memories as a Pre-form in the Nursery are fractured and cast in the surreal light of a four-year-old’s memory. She remembers long days confined within the Nursery walls and an overwhelming curiosity about the outside world. More vivid are her memories as a Premie – the ten years she spent with her Fire cohort. There had been fifty of them – fifty Premies to make up one of six Fire cohorts. In the beginning she had thought she would spend the rest of her life with them, that they were connected somehow.

  She laughs now at the sentimentality, even as it dredges something raw up from her centre. In the end, only three Premies from her cohort graduated as Peacekeeper Trainees. Only two are still alive to remember it.

  And here she is again, the same trepidation she felt almost twenty years ago rushing over her as she enters the Nursery grounds. She expects the feeling to lighten as she makes her way to the designated training room, but it only grows heavier, weighing down her steps and slowing her arrival. She pulls at the loose sleeves of her Air attire, irrationally wishing for the tight familiarity of her Peacekeeper uniform.

  “And that is everyone,” an older Water Elemental intones, nodding at Anaiya as she enters the room. “You may commence the training.”

  While the room is small, it easily accommodates the Sound Creator Trainer, Water Observer and the two hypoxic Air Elementals already seated at individual desks.

  Anaiya takes a seat at the remaining desk towards the back of the room. Its surface is inlaid with an expansive sheet of leibler polymer that reflects a softer version of Anaiya back to her. She reaches out to touch it. At the slightest pressure of her fingertips, the entire table flashes to life. A vibrant green streak appears as evidence of her contact, accompanied by a bright shimmering noise that gains in pitch as it fades in volume.

  The rest of the room immediately turn to regard her, the Water Observer scowling at the unexpected interruption.

  “Well, then,” the Trainer says, a broad smile settling on his face. “Let’s start Sound Creating.”

  “Plug your lifelines into the desk jack,” the Water Observer instructs. “I will be monitoring your vitals throughout the training. I’ve overseen the alignment of hundreds of Premies over the years, of course, but have also worked with Elementals suffering irreversible hypoxia, teratogenesis and neurocognitive injury. Some anxiety, headaches or distress is normal for these sessions; anything more serious will be immediately addressed.”

  She looks around the room at each of the students, watching them plug in their lifelines before nodding to herself and taking a seat at the terminal at the front of the room.

  “Excellent,” the Air Trainer says. “Welcome to Module One.”

  A tap on his glass screen and the room fills with sound. Anaiya’s desk screen shifts into a complex dashboard that flashes different colours at different intensities as the music itself shifts, rising to crescendos and fading to whispers.

  “To begin with, I just want you to observe the music. Find its shape, watch its movement.”

  The complex melody condenses into a simple piece. Anaiya locates its pattern on the desk screen, watching dense beats appear as pixelated squares that grow in height with increased volume and deepen in colour with depth of register. Hollow sounds send yellow waves across the lower part of the dashboard; metallic sounds translate as spikes that peak narrower for higher pitches.

  With each swipe of the Trainer’s hand, a new piece of music emerges. The room is filled with the fast and dense pieces Anaiya listened to as a Peacekeeper and then with the intricate melodies of her realignment. Another swipe and the room is filled with a bright, pacy tune that bounces as it builds. He swipes again and strong, consistent beats vibrate with clear, metallic chimes. Again and again, the Trainer swipes his hand across his glass screen, allowing the music to fill the room before condensing it into distinct structural parts for the students to learn.

  Anaiya becomes absorbed with the dashboard. Her eyes dart between the various
displays until she no longer merely hears the music, but genuinely sees it. With each change of colour, wavelength, peak and column, she anticipates the accompanying change in the music.

  Her earlier trepidation fades as the music takes control, her mind ejecting unnecessary thoughts and complicated memories, completely absorbed by the visualisation in front of her.

  Almost instinctively, her fingers reach out to touch the abstract images on the screen. The sounds amplify.

  Intrigued, she delays her next touches, smiling when the expected echo ripples along the melody. The music patterns grow in complexity, but in them she sees the opportunity for new tangents, mirror images and echoes.

  Her fingers swipe and tap and flicker over the screen in intricate patterns, sometimes complementing the dominant music pattern, sometimes competing.

  The push and pull of the melody’s path – sometimes submission, sometimes transcendence – is a free-run in miniature; its fluctuating pace, its saut du fronds, kash vaults, demitours – all echoes against a set landscape, all flourishes of various frivolity.

  And then there is no landscape, no dominant melody, just the music that emerges from under Anaiya’s fingers. It is bold, and soft, and spiky and tentative, and all the things that she is. It peaks and lulls, and finally it stops.

  The silence rushes into the room and she looks up.

  The other two students stare at her, and the Observer is scowling again, but the Trainer is beaming.

  “Well,” he says. “It seems we have a Symbiotic.”

  Symbiotic.

  It is a word that she hasn’t heard since her graduation. All Elementals have a strong compatibility with their designated competencies, but as with most things, there are degrees of difference. For Premies, the stronger the affinity to a competency, the higher the rank they graduate in to.

  Symbiotics were Elementals who had complete affinity with their competency. They weren’t rare, but they weren’t common. When graduating as a Peacekeeper, Anaiya had hoped she would be graded Symbiotic, but no Peacekeepers of her generation had earned that honour.