Resistance: Divided Elements (Book 1)

by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky

  The Water Observer barks out a short laugh.

  “I don’t think Symbiotic is an appropriate assessment,” she says, shooting a disapproving look at the Air Trainer. “There is no precedent for hypoxic Elementals to be Symbiotic. The likelihood is negligible. And in any case, that would be an assessment for a Neural Interpreter.”

  “Of course,” the Trainer responds, hands held up in submission.

  The Observer nods, placated, and the two other students smile, returning their gaze to the front. Anaiya slowly exhales.

  Not Symbiotic.

  Perhaps. But there had been an ease to her Sound Creation, a thing born of intuition and not focus. It had taken years to reach that state of flow with her Peacekeeping. The thought is unsettling.

  “Let’s continue,” the Trainer says, flashing Anaiya a wink before pulling up the next module.

  NINE

  THE WEEKS PASS by in a haze of limited awareness. The tests are easier – simpler to navigate, simpler to leave behind as she transitions back into reality. The Sound Creation modules continue to provide more interest and less challenge.

  But the nights are harder to navigate. In the darkness, the muscle memory of her Fire identity calls on Anaiya to escape the walls of Last Defence and free-run through the glittering streets below. It fights against the subconscious of her Air identity, the part of her mind that sings sweetly, begging her to give voice to the music that builds and cascades within.

  The conflict between her two desires renders her immobilised – leaving her consumed by the need to do both and disabled from doing either.

  Normally, the nurozav dulls the pain, but tonight the pills offer no relief. She swallows another two, then four – their bitter coating flashing with hints of salt ash. With her heart fluttering, she glances again at the decrypted message on her wristplate.

  Deployment Briefing commences tomorrow. Attend to R4.16 - 48.870622°N, 2.316869°E at 0600. Confirm acknowledgement immediately.

  It is her first reminder of life as a Peacekeeper since the realignment. It is supposed to bring her relief from the confusion, to plug her back in to her old life and provide an escape from this limbo. Instead, she finds herself lying on the cold, hard floor of her apartment letting the nurozav steal away her thoughts and fears.

  Hours later, an insistent beeping vibrates up through her arm and pricks at her consciousness, waking her an hour before the briefing is to commence. As she sits, her stomach roils violently and she lurches forwards, choking on the acrid bile that comes up with the meagre contents of her stomach.

  With shaking hands she grabs a discarded shirt lying nearby and rubs it vigorously over the floor to erase the evidence. She showers and dresses quickly and it is only when she has finished pulling her boots on that she opens the map application on her wristplate to check for her destination. A small red circle appears centred on the screen, positioned in an administrative quarter of Precinct 8.

  Anaiya’s right hand hesitates over the wristplate before she taps on the circle to confirm the location. Even before the details come up, she knows she has been there before.

  * * *

  OUTSIDE LAST DEFENCE the morning sky is still dark, the Precincts still quiet. Running brings her no relief, her leaden feet thudding along the streets of Otpor to Precinct 8’s Peacekeeper headquarters.

  It is only a short distance from Last Defence, but the avenues seem longer, time stickier. Her mind prickles with the hint of an imminent threat.

  As a Peacekeeper, she had relied on her body’s subtle appreciation of danger to rapidly assess situations, diffuse weight and pre-empt attacks. Now, it acts like an opposing magnet, resisting every step she takes towards her destination, pulling her back towards Last Defence.

  The thought of deployment teases at her mind’s edges, but it is the thought of seeing and of being seen by Fire Elementals that causes her throat to tighten and stomach to shrink. She wonders if they will recognise her as an imposter, as damaged, as some sick joke.

  Minutes later, the shadow of the familiar ten-storey building pulls Anaiya up short. She stands there, shallow breath catching in her chest while her eyes scale the facade to take in details of the reflected city. Peacekeepers sprint past her, flowing around her at speed while she stands motionless. She avoids looking too closely at them, her gaze never straying from the building before her.

  Her first step towards the building’s entrance is an echo of her first step as a Premie leaving the Nursery. And of her first step as a Peacekeeper graduate entering the Eastern Area on assignment. But where those first steps were full of hope and excited anticipation, this one is full of confusion and anxiety.

  She pushes against the inertia holding her tethered to the courtyard and continues forwards. Her instincts keep her head low, her feet dragging her to the building’s entrance. Through the entryway and lobby and up the eastern staircase, she doesn’t pause until she has swiped her wristplate across the panel outside room 4.16 and entered the space.

  Inside, a small gathering of four Peacekeepers stand around in their characteristic inwards-facing circle, all angles of the room observed by at least one pair of eyes. The two facing Anaiya look up casually as she enters. The female on the left is of Anaiya’s generation. Her stance is relaxed, but the readiness flashing in her eyes is reflected in the way she centres her weight forwards and keeps her arms hanging loose and unobstructed by her side.

  Anaiya was once like this.

  Her eyes drop to the Peacekeeper’s solar plexus. In her mind, Anaiya sees herself reach out to steal the Fire from this stranger and use it to replace the flame that has been extinguished inside her.

  Consumed by her thoughts, she doesn’t notice when the other two Peacekeepers turn to regard her. It is only when a deep, familiar voice calls her name that she tears her gaze away from the female.

  “Hello, Ani.”

  Anaiya breathes in the melodic syllable, the diminutive catching in her throat. It has been a lifetime since she last saw Niamh, yet she sees him clearly as she did then – sitting unmoved in Last Defence as she agreed to sacrifice her Fire. The pang at her centre deepens in intensity and sharpness. While many emotions are still unknown and unfamiliar to her, betrayal is not one of them.

  Anaiya nods her greeting, unable to speak with her throat still constricted. The other three Peacekeepers appraise her silently.

  “All right, let’s begin,” he announces, gesturing towards the row of bench seats that sit against the wall to his left.

  As Anaiya takes her seat with the other three, Niamh activates the wallscreen at the front of the room. A large map of Otpor appears on the wall, each precinct coloured to represent the Element dominant there and dotted presumably with the locations of Heterodoxy events.

  “All of you have been summoned here today as recruits for Operation Inferno. As of now, all substantive Peacekeeping duties will cease until the successful conclusion of the Operation. Your Area Commanders have been informed that you have been appropriated for Special Ops but do not know the target or mission. You are not to tell them. As of today, all of you, except Anaiya, will be transferred to this Precinct for the remainder of the Operation. You will answer to me, and only me, as Task Force Commander.”

  Anaiya glances down to the insignia embroidered just below his left collar. The golden insignia is now encircled by a thick red line. Peace Protector. Niamh has been promoted. Again. How much has her realignment contributed to his new standing?

  “I don’t need to tell you how dire the situation is,” he continues. “As of today, we have thirty confirmed cases of Heterodoxy, all presented in the same format.”

  The screen switches from the map of Otpor to a graphic run of all thirty murals. The first two are instantly familiar, representing the first case she discovered in the Edges and the one she removed in Precinct 11. She watches transfixed as the remaining twenty-eight cases are presented. Isolated in her Last Defence room, with no wallscreen or information terminal, she
has been protected from the increasing spate of attacks.

  “Water Elementals have crunched the data and have developed a target profile at a ninety-five per cent confidence interval.”

  The screen shifts again, zooming in to Precinct 18 within the Northern Area Command.

  “Based on their intel, we are looking at an Air Elemental inhabiting or extremely active in Precinct 18, likely within their fifth or sixth lustrum and assigned to a Graphics-related corp – Advertising, Gaming Development, Propaganda.

  “Water Analysts will continue to feed us intel from the Northern Area Command and we’ll target surveillance in rotating hubs across the various divisions of the Precinct. Jenna, Tristan, Che – you’ll be following up leads, gathering additional intel on the ground and cultivating informants.”

  The other three Peacekeepers nod their assent. Their task is a familiar one. They have not been selected on their ability to perform the task, but because of a demonstrated excellence in one of the core Peacekeeping attributes – speed, rapid response or ability to sense weight. Anaiya sizes up each of the Peacekeepers, trying to assess which attribute they excel in. The two male Peacekeepers, Tristan and Che, ignore her pointed gaze. Jenna, however, returns it evenly.

  “And what does she do?” Jenna asks, never taking her eyes from Anaiya’s.

  “Anaiya will be doing close surveillance.”

  Anaiya surrenders her gaze from the confrontation with Jenna to look at Niamh. She notices for the first time the way his eyes crease slightly when that half-grin, half-smirk plays at the corners of his mouth, notices how his T-shirt pulls when he reaches up to brush strands of hair from his face. His gaze again locks on Anaiya, but this confrontation elicits an entirely different response.

  She recalls in rapid succession all the times they have been intimate, sensations and images flashing like a channel scan through her memories. His hand trailing on bare flesh, teeth sinking into the soft part where neck meets shoulder, the sweet musk of sex, the wildfire of abandonment in his eyes. They come to her heavier, laden with meaning not there before. Their sex is no longer categorised with the other practical and physical acts. It holds a deeper attachment, contains a previously hidden music.

  Caught off-guard by her thoughts, she hurriedly breaks her gaze with Niamh, fixing her gaze to the map on the wallscreen.

  “And how is she going to do that without compromising the Operation?”

  Anaiya waits for Niamh’s rebuke of Jenna’s interruption, but it never comes. She surreptitiously observes the body language engagement between the two. Jenna does not share the straight-backed posture or folded arms of the other two Peacekeepers and she holds Niamh’s gaze easily. Niamh has shifted his wide stance, his torso now angled towards Jenna. Anaiya takes in the way his left hand rests on his hip, fingers tangled in his jean belt loops, while his right scratches the stubble at his chin, fingers dragging along his angular jawline. The recognition of familiarity between them slams into Anaiya.

  “We have our ways.”

  She concentrates on Niamh’s eyes, looking for hints of disgust or embarrassment. Instead they glitter, accentuating the smile that broadens across his face. It is a smile she knows, though not the smile of his betrayal. It is the smile of pursuit – of adrenalin and anticipation. Memories of free-running with him – patrolling the city and going toe-to-toe with offenders – bounce off each other in her mind. They should be good memories, but instead her stomach tightens and a familiar anxiety tickles along her nerves.

  “…in Precinct 18.”

  Niamh’s voice breaks Anaiya out of her reverie. He is facing the wallscreen, swiping his hand across its surface to bring up a larger-scale map at street level of the precinct.

  “Our job is to feed her the right intel to give her access to the right spaces and the opportunities to come into contact with our Elementals of interest.”

  He swipes his hand again to reveal a communication hierarchy.

  “Jenna, Tristan and Che, you will feed your surveillance and informant data directly through to me, which will be passed on to Water Intel Analysts along with any other data coming in from the Northern Area Command and other Area Commands where Heterodox murals continue to appear. This intel will continue to shape our investigation strategy – we will meet every week here at headquarters to discuss our plan going forward.

  “Anaiya, I will contact you remotely to give you your instructions. You will receive an encrypted message with the codeword ‘inferno’ within the first three lines of content. Once you are in a secured location, you are to call the number that will appear in the second last line of text.”

  Anaiya nods her understanding of the standard Peacekeeper protocol.

  “Under no circumstances are any of you to have direct contact with Anaiya. All comms are to come directly from me or directly to me. You will see her in the streets, you will see her in contact with Air Elementals of interest. You will not approach her. You will come to me with your surveillance intel and I will direct your next course of action. Is that clear?”

  The other Peacekeepers nod silently. It is a point that doesn’t need emphasis; Peacekeepers are obedient to their superiors by nature and conditioning. They will not be briefed on her realignment procedure. It will remain as Niamh’s secret to keep.

  * * *

  THE NEXT FOUR hours are spent going through intelligence supplied by Water Intel Analysts. Anaiya drifts in and out of attention – one minute, absorbed by the information that flashes on the wallscreen and streams from Niamh’s lips, the next, distracted by the shadows along Niamh’s jawline or fixated on the patterns that the street grid of Precinct 18 trails across the wall.

  Once again, it is Niamh who breaks her out of the maze inside her mind. He triple taps on the wallscreen and it shuts off in a quick burst of light. The briefing has concluded. Anaiya hesitates before she moves, letting the other Peacekeepers head towards the room’s exit before she stands up.

  She watches uncomfortably as Jenna lingers when passing Niamh, pushing up on her toes to whisper something into his ear. She watches for Niamh’s reaction and looks hurriedly away at the broad grin that grows on his face.

  One…Two…Three…

  Anaiya looks up. Jenna is exiting the room and Niamh stands, arms folded, staring at her. His grin has faded into an easy smile. Anaiya’s heart rate spikes and heat threatens to travel up from her belly to her cheeks.

  It is just Niamh.

  The same Niamh she raced through the Nursery grounds. The same Niamh who matched her jump for jump, vault for vault, aerial for aerial as they free-ran across the Eastern Area. The same Niamh who touched her and took her in the shower.

  The heat is threatening to return.

  “How do you know Jenna?” she asks quickly, without thinking – her unfiltered limbic brain coming to the fore.

  “We worked on a task force a few years back,” he says, looking briefly over his shoulder at the empty doorway before returning to face Anaiya. “We’ve been intimate a few times.”

  It is nothing unexpected, yet she cannot respond. The pause grows pregnant and suffocating.

  “Why, Ani? Are you jealous?”

  She can hear the teasing in his voice, see it in the way he cocks his head to the side and quirks his lips up into a faint smile. A hazy memory of the last time they were together, when she asked the same flippant question, tickles in the back of her mind.

  It floats in the background, utterly dominated by a more urgent and intense reaction: she’s overwhelmed by her realisation that this complex tapestry of emotions that have plagued her since she walked into the room have a name – a name she knows and is ashamed of.

  Anaiya is jealous. Jealous of Niamh and Jenna and their intimacy. Jealous of their pure Peacekeeper status and untouched Fire Elemental minds. Jealous of the Anaiya she used to be.

  It hits her like a well-weighted blow to her stomach, knocking the wind from her lungs and all coherent thought from her mind. She closes her ey
es tightly, grabbing at her stomach.

  Through the fuzziness she can hear Niamh asking if she is OK, feel the weight of his hand at the small of her back.

  A faint voice in the depths of her mind is screaming to her through the layers of panic, confusion, shame and jealousy. She clings to it, letting it become clearer until it pierces her neocortex.

  Clear it, Anaiya. CLEAR IT.

  Beat.

  Blink.

  Snap.

  Her eyes clear and the weight at her core lifts. Anaiya feels the familiar sloughing of her brain as it pulls back the messy layer of limbic thoughts to reveal a clear neocortex. She looks into Niamh’s eyes, no longer pools to drown in, just brown-tinted orbs fixed in his face like any other pair on any other Elemental.

  “Sorry,” she says in a tight, clear voice. “The realignment medication.”

  The quasi-lie rolls easily off her tongue, her Air brain gifting her an advantage at last. Niamh’s frown fades and he nods, accepting her explanation.

  “How has it been?” he asks, a Peacekeeper inspecting his weapon for faults.

  Anaiya pauses, giving herself time to word her reply, to frame it as a proper Peacekeeper would.

  “It is what it is. I just want to complete the mission and return the Orthodoxy.”

  TEN

  THE SUBTERRANEAN WORM is quiet when Anaiya boards it pre-dawn.

  So it has come to this.

  Traversing the city by public transport was for the disabled or the lazy. For stationary Elementals. Peacekeepers were meant to fly along streets, not shuttle along tunnels.

  I am not a Peacekeeper.

  The admission is a difficult one. One that has not grown easier over the weeks leading up to this day – the day of her deployment.

  She sits in the last seat of the last segment with her back against the wall. Resting her head against the window, she rubs her right hand along the raised pattern of skin that runs up her left arm. A shiver of sensitivity hinting at pain blooms along her forearm, the ink still raw.