At this deeper level is the knowledge of exactly what Seth hasn’t told her and of where Cressida and Kaide are taking them. Knowing what she will find at the end of their journey, however, does not prepare her for the visceral reaction when she sees it.
Cressida and Kaide halt their progress at the end of a darkened laneway lined with shopfronts and restaurants that will soon fill with the morning rush. With the ghosts of these future Elementals brushing against her, Anaiya’s step falters. Seth reaches for her, keeping her from tumbling. She leans gratefully on him as she regains her balance. Straightening, her eyes lift to where Kaide and Cressida are standing to attention either side of a black wall.
She realises, belatedly, that they are waiting for something. The incriminating scent that has followed them is denser here, clinging to Anaiya’s nostrils and making her eyes water. Seth glances at her, checking she is OK. A slight squeeze of her hand is the last thing Anaiya remembers before her world is thrown, again, into chaos.
Releasing her, Seth taps at his wristplate and the harsh white light of the diode explodes around them. Anaiya doesn’t see how the light creates deep shadows on the faces of her companions or obliterates the subtlety in the details of the buildings around them. All she sees is the nightmare vision in front of her.
The mural is immense, scaling almost the entire height of the four-storey facade. Instinctively, Anaiya knows that the details must be different, but all she can see are the same motifs that have plagued the other cases of Heterodoxy. Black fire scorching the other elements, turning them to ash that crumbles and disintegrates at the edges. And the forbidden word. Painted in metre-high lettering, it runs the full length of the ten-metre wall.
RESISTANCE.
TWENTY
ANAIYA CLENCHES DOWN on the bile that threatens to erupt through her system. She closes her eyes, seeing the mural painted in negative on the inside of her eyelids. Her body tingles with the effort of staying still; she wants to scream, to rail.
Pulling in deep breaths, she concentrates on counting the supersonic beats of her heart. Lets the chaos consume her.
And clears it.
The torrent of emotion freezes inside her mind. Still there, but no longer active. She feels her neocortex navigate around it, pushing forward to assert its dominance.
Opening her eyes, she is confronted again with the mural. But this time, her heart is hardened and she can appraise it with cold rationality. The details of the mural are more complex than in previous instances, leading her to conclude that the perpetrators have had more time to complete their Heterodoxy. She realises that they are using the curfew to their advantage, turning the Cooperative’s efforts against them.
She laughs.
The sound is too loud: it reverberates off the defaced wall and down the streets, a globule of lys travelling and diluting along a network of veins. Cressida startles at the sound before relaxing into a relieved smile. Anaiya turns to Seth. Unlike the other two, his face is harder to read.
“So you like it?” he murmurs.
She looks back to the mural. Despite her newfound clarity and calmness, she finds it easier to face the crime than the traitor. The traitor who only moments ago…
She shuts down the memory before it can consume her, before it can distract her from the situation at hand. She will not be distracted again. Despite her own failings she has been given a second chance to succeed in her mission and she is adamant she will not need a third. Her neocortex maintains its primacy, containing the trembling limbic brain that continues to seek out Seth’s presence like a synth-addled addict. It pushes down the conflicting emotions and vulnerable memories to plan her next move.
“It is perfect,” she whispers.
* * *
MOMENTS LATER, with thoughts of curfew and extra Peacekeeper patrols, the four of them tear their respective gazes away from the mural and begin their retreat. No words are spoken as they slink through the empty streets.
After ten minutes or so, Cressida peels off down an unmarked street alone and Anaiya is left with the two males. The streets are growing wider, lined with blaring street lights and well-lit administrative buildings; it is harder for the three of them to stay shadowed and obscured. Anaiya presses in behind Seth, recoiling internally at the intimacy. She feels Kaide follow suit, catching flashes of connecting skin and a shallow breath at her neck. Hand clenched at her sides, she endures the shame, desperate as they are to remain hidden from unannounced Peacekeeper patrols.
Finally seeing a familiar street that will lead her to her apartment, Anaiya exhales and breaks away from the two males. A strong grip wraps around her forearm, halting her in her tracks.
“Where are you going?” Kaide whispers.
Seth turns around, frowning at Kaide and then Anaiya. Kaide drops his grip, but moves to block her path.
“I’m going home,” Anaiya whispers back, glancing at Seth before stepping to move around Kaide.
Kaide mirrors her movement, continuing to block her path. “We can’t let you do that. It’s too dangerous.”
“Kaide’s right, butterfly.” Seth has moved closer to make his hushed voice more easily heard. “Peacekeeper patrols are too prevalent in this area. You’ll have to come back to my place until morning.”
She looks from Seth to Kaide. Kaide’s arms are crossed loosely against his chest, reminding her of confident Peacekeepers who anticipate resistance from deluded perpetrators. She is caught – there is no time to try and reason her way out of it: every minute they stay there in the half shadows and silence increases the risk of their detection. Attempting to evade Kaide will only create disruption and suspicion, neither of which she can afford.
There is nothing for it. She shrugs her shoulders and turns back to Seth. “OK.”
* * *
WHEN they finally reach Seth’s apartment building, Anaiya’s wristplate flashes 0411. She should be tired, but the adrenalin of the night is unrelenting and she climbs the stairs to his unit with purpose. Free from the threat of capture and detention, Kaide and Seth also seem less tense, although Anaiya senses a new weight about them.
Once inside the unit, she settles down on the lounge that had cradled her hours ago and waits. Kaide comes to join her, perching on the lounge’s arm, while Seth takes his spot on the floor across from them.
For a moment, Seth just looks at her. She forces her body to stay neutral, not engaging him, not giving anything away. She can’t afford any more missteps, any more flashes of unrestrained Air or Fire emotions.
A shrill beep interrupts the silence.
“Cress made it back OK,” Kaide announces. “Rehhd’s pissed.”
Seth sighs. “Nothing new there.”
“Does she know about this?”
Anaiya glances up at the change in Kaide’s tone, catching his eye before he looks away. Seth drags his hand through his hair, refusing to look at either of them.
Kaide curses. “Seth…”
“I know,” he replies. “I know.”
“Do you?”
Seth looks up sharply, his retort dying on his lips. He pauses. “How are you doing, Anaiya?” he asks instead.
Surprised by the sudden diversion, she forces herself to wait before answering. Things are getting out of control and she feels as if everything hangs on a precipice. “Confused…” she begins. “I’m not sure whether you want me here or not.”
Before Seth can reply, Kaide shifts next to her and speaks. “What did you think of our protest?”
The forbidden word rolls easily off his tongue. It registers no response in Anaiya, she wonders if she will ever be shocked by Heterodoxy again. “The mural? It wasn’t as creative as others I’ve seen.”
Seth barks a short laugh, but Kaide is unmoved. “Did you have much exposure to the resistance movement in the Eastern Area?”
“Not personally,” she replies.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I didn’t get personalised, post-curfew viewings
by the artists themselves,” she says. Too quickly, too harshly.
Kaide raises an eyebrow, but the interrogation halts.
Play it smarter, Anaiya.
She knows she has to be more careful; knows she has to give them the impression that she is open to this rebellion, that they can trust her. But in her current state of chaos there is no way to guarantee it will be her neocortex, and not her limbic brain, that will respond first.
She looks over at Seth. “It’s been a big night. I’m going to try and get some sleep before curfew ends.”
He blinks out of whatever reverie she has caught him in and stands up. “You can take my room for the night,” he says. “Kaide and I will sleep out here.”
* * *
SETTLED IN SETH’S BED, Anaiya stares into the darkness, straining to hear more clearly the muffled conversation that leaks into the room. The tension between the two males occasionally swells, and she catches brief bursts of dialogue, but never enough for her to piece together a coherent exchange.
She fights the growing heaviness of her eyelids, straining to stave off sleep, but in the end her efforts are useless and she falls into a tortured slumber.
Two hours later, shafts of golden light stream in through Seth’s bedroom window. Anaiya lies still as the memories of the night before disentangle themselves from the dreams that followed.
In the soft-tinted light, the room is a strange balance of hard lines and soft shadows that reminds her of Seth himself. His mark on the room is immediately obvious – an aesthetic counterpoint to its functionality. Market trinkets are scattered on geometric chairs and hung in ribbons from the window lintel. Construction materials are fused together to create arresting sculptures that serve as shelves, stools and doorstops. The far wall is a jumble of small, low-voltage screens that play music visualisations, game scenes and clips from vintage movies on endless loops.
But it’s the ceiling that captivates her. The material is a soft polymer. An inconsistent tint sees the grey darken and mottle in some places and shift from gloss to matte in narrow strata. In spite of how interesting the actual material is, how contradictory and utterly Seth it is, its crude vandalism interests her.
Shallow grooves are carved into the surface, running in slanted lines across the ceiling. The harsh gouges unnerve her, but she finds the words themselves beautiful, and familiar.
Liberty…Egality…Fraternity…Or Death.
Staring at the engraving, her mind works to understand this intimate stranger who is capable of carving the state motto on his ceiling while working to undermine the state through the ultimate crime of Heterodoxy.
Why, Seth?
It is a question she wants to scream through the walls. Lacking an answer, the question quickly morphs into a simpler enquiry.
How?
How could someone like Seth be corrupted? Who recruited him into this madness? What lies have they fed him?
These smaller, subsequent questions repeat on a constant loop through her mind, stirring up and consolidating all of her uncomfortable feelings, shaping them into one dominant emotion. Anger.
And with that emotion comes a target for it.
Rehhd.
* * *
“MORNING,” Seth greets her as she wanders from his bedroom to the lounge room. “How did you sleep?”
His eyes are red-rimmed and dark shadows make him look older, more rugged. Her heart twinges, but she roughly shoves the feeling aside.
No. No more, Anaiya. No more distractions.
“Better than you, it seems. Where’s Kaide?”
“He left as curfew broke – he lives on the other side of the Area, so he has a fair way to travel.”
Seth is making unnecessary excuses for him.
Anaiya is not interested. “I’m going to head out, as well,” she says, moving towards the door.
Seth sighs, dragging his knuckles across his cheek, and nods. “Will I see you again?”
It is a question loaded with a dozen more. Can I trust you? Have I scared you away? Are you on our side? Are you really one of us?
She cannot answer the unspoken questions and so she ignores them.
With Rehhd and Kaide less than enthused about her presence, she needs to maintain contact with Seth. He is her only link to the Resistance leadership, her only opportunity to gain more intel on Rehhd.
“Yes. I would like that.”
A weary smile emerges from his tired face. “There’s a curfew lockdown party at Yve’s izakaya next weekend,” he says. “You should come.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
TWENTY-ONE
THE EARLY MORNING streets of Precinct 18 are quiet. It is the Seventh day – the day of recovery for debaucherous Elementals, of religious observance for the pious. The brown sun, shadowed by a dense haze, is still too bright for Anaiya. She closes her eyes against it, fragile from the night’s encounter.
A shrill beep shatters the silence. Anaiya startles and opens her eyes. Her arm shivers with the vibrations of her wristplate and the panel illuminates with the new message icon. She taps on it, her heart racing as the text materialises, the code immediately recognisable.
She stares at it for a while, organising her thoughts, before entering the six-digit number into the communication module and plugging her lifeline into her ear. The low-pitched rumbling of the dialling tone is quickly terminated by the sound of Niamh’s voice.
“Ani, where are you at?”
It’s tight; perfunctory.
“Heading to ground zero,” she replies. “Should I call you back?”
“No need,” he says. “Can you meet at Peacekeeper HQ for a briefing in thirty?”
Scenarios and second-guesses assault Anaiya’s mind. It has been too long in between communications. Why is he calling now? What isn’t he telling her?
“See you then,” she says, clicking off the communication before Niamh can throw her into further chaos with his words or voice.
Standing still in the busy street, Anaiya lets the crowd rush around her, anchoring herself against the ebb and flow of Elementals oblivious to her panic and despair. She tries to focus her mind on more rational thoughts, like getting her feet to move. Instead, inane and irrelevant comparisons of Niamh to Seth jostle alongside contingency plans to keep both of them from her secret mission.
Disturbingly, she finds herself unsure of which would be worse – conceding to Niamh her intimacy with the Resistance or confessing to Seth her true nature as a Peacekeeper.
* * *
STANDING OUTSIDE MISSION HEADQUARTERS, uninvited memories of Anaiya’s last visit flood her mind and the hesitancy that overwhelmed her then threatens to re-emerge. She forces her limbs to stand straighter, arches her back and trains her eyes calmly on the sight in front of her.
Using her mind-clearing technique, she banishes all limbic thoughts and sensations and brings her neocortex to the fore. Her breathing regulates, her heartbeat slows, and she doesn’t need to look at her wristplate to know that her endorphin levels have dropped and chemical stats normalised.
She is ready.
Arriving at the briefing room, she finds Niamh standing alone, staring out a window that takes up the entire wall. He has his back to the door, but Anaiya knows his ears are alert to any unexpected presence. He doesn’t react when she steps into the room.
Anaiya moves slowly towards him, not distracted by the expansive vista. With her limbic brain silenced, her appraisal of Niamh is considered. Memories of their time together mix out of order with numerous reports and conversations, forming a rough and organic perspective of the Elemental before her. He is the consummate Peacekeeper – fearless, disciplined, committed, confident.
But there is more than that: a self-assuredness that announces itself in his casual stance, a challenge in the way he dismisses her until he is ready to engage.
There is an economy to Niamh. A cold calculation of how much you can offer him against how much he needs to offer back. A balance sheet where
he is never in debt and never pays more than market value.
“Hey, Ani,” he says abruptly, keeping his eyes ahead.
Anaiya flinches. Grateful he is not facing her to see it, she crosses the gap between them.
“Hey, Niamh,” she says, reaching the space next to him.
“Long time, no speak.” His voice is heavy with a hidden challenge.
“Nothing new to report,” she says carefully, glancing at his profile to gauge his fire.
“Not what I hear,” he says, turning his head to regard her.
Grey eyes glitter black, cold despite the warm-tinted light. A clenched jaw and still posture threaten to break Anaiya’s resolve and her mind races with the likely consequences of telling Niamh everything.
She wants to shrink under his gaze; instead, she forces herself to calmly return it.
“Anything you want to tell me, Anaiya?”
Anaiya’s thoughts are a swarm of synthflies. What does he know? And how much of it?
A new but familiar voice calls out. “Like, how close you’ve become to your targets.”
It is a flat statement, no question or curiosity in it. Anaiya knows without turning around that Jenna has joined them, so she continues to watch Niamh, looking for clues about what exactly is contained beneath his schooled features.
He turns to Jenna.
“Back down, Jen,” he says sharply.
Anaiya is satisfied with his tone, but feels a bitter edge; wondering whether Niamh gives nicknames to all the Elementals he is intimate with.
“Ani?” he asks, the toxin still lacing his voice.
“What?”
“Are you getting too involved with the targets?”
She shoots a quick glance over to Jenna. The Peacekeeper shares the same confidence as Niamh, but her stance is combative where Niamh’s is calm.
Anaiya lets her thoughts dredge up the memory of the confrontation with Jenna, trying desperately to isolate it from the events that preceded and followed it. It seems almost impossible that it took place only three nights ago.
Resistance: Divided Elements (Book 1) Page 17
