Niamh shakes his head. “This Air attitude is not attractive. The sooner you’re realigned back to Fire, the better.”
“So can I have the lead?”
“You get one chance, Anaiya. Mess it up, and Jenna takes it.”
* * *
ANAIYA HEARS the lockdown party long before she turns into Beauvoir Lane. Unlike other izakaya whose bellies are being emptied of patrons and sound, Veritas has a steady current of Air Elementals disappearing behind its door, a cacophony of music and shouting spewing into the street with every gape of the entrance.
The sight of the izakaya, her first meeting point with Rehhd, forces her to pause. The moment grows heavier, full of meaning and inevitability. It has come to this. Her mission – her madness – has arrived at its destination.
Tonight, before the curfew lifts, before the new day is born, she will have her victory.
A jostle at her side forces her back into the real world of sounds so dense she could swim through them, sights so vivid she could clutch them. Around her, the final thrum of Air Elementals are making their way into Veritas, their levity singing through the emptying streets.
Curfew will begin in less than ten minutes; the Peacekeepers are already amassing on street corners to enforce the Orthodoxy. They survey the spectacle with stony faces and relaxed feet.
And for a moment, she is caught – suspended between her past, her present and her future.
She stares at the kevlar-clad Peacekeepers, wanting to see herself there – to see herself again as one of them. The one on the left, a female in her fifth lustrum like Anaiya, catches her staring. A quick nudge to her partner and both pairs of eyes regard Anaiya coolly. And just as quickly, there is weight.
Anaiya blinks at its sudden appearance but does not look away. Instead she squares her shoulders, turning to face the Peacekeepers more directly. The action awakens old memories. Of the street party in Le Maraias. Of loud music and lounges. Of the Samedi Markets. Of weight. Of a defiant Air Elemental who refused to look away under her Peacekeeper scrutiny.
The Peacekeepers shift, a glance at their wristplates confirming that curfew is only minutes away. Anaiya is the only Air Elemental still in the street. With a curse under her breath she turns and hurries into the izakaya.
Her arrival into the dimly lit space is halted almost immediately, her body colliding with another walking at pace towards the exit. The impact sends her stumbling back, her back grazing the cool metal of the door. Laughing eyes dance over her and strong arms grab her by the shoulders. “You had me worried there, butterfly.”
She is given no time for a response, relieved of needing to come up with a poorly constructed excuse for her tardiness. The same strong arms drop to her waist and pluck her from the ground, cinching her securely and spinning her in dizzy circles until she is weightless and laughing despite herself.
Guilt threatens, but she squashes it. She can have this moment. She can be happy. I’ve completed my mission. I can celebrate. She allows herself to relax against him, savouring the faded scent of aftershave and tequila. “You started without me?”
Seth sets her down gently, grinning broadly. “Only just. Come on – let’s get you a drink.”
He pulls her towards the bar. The feeling of her hand in his reminds her of their time in the Edges. It feels solid; it feels right. Their progress through the crowd is halted a few seconds later when the shout goes up.
“Ten! Nine! Eight!”
Elementals take up the chant as the numbers flash down on a large wallscreen above the bar. A large Elemental pushes past her and Seth to take up a position by the door.
“Seven! Six! Five!”
Seth is beaming at her, pulling her closer until they are pressed tight against each other, a single unit against the tide of Elementals around them.
“Four! Three! Two!”
He leans his head forwards, their foreheads touching. She looks down at his lips. Fixated as he whispers the word that otherwise echoes in a loud collective voice around the izakaya.
“One.”
A cheer erupts in the small place, the explosion of sound a poor imitation of the sensation that takes Anaiya when Seth tilts her chin up and presses his lips to hers. Her mind teeters on a precipice, caught between wanting more of the ecstasy and wanting to shun anything that marks her as something other than a Fire Elemental.
But for tonight, if only until the curfew lifts and the doors open, she is not a Peacekeeper. She is not a Fire Elemental. She is another tripped out, heady, careless Air Elemental wrapped in the arms of a kindred spirit who sets her nerve endings on fire.
It is a second chance. A last chance. A caution where, in typical circumstances, a penalty would otherwise be imposed.
It is the reprieve she needs to relax into the moment and kiss him back.
* * *
“ANAIYA.”
The voice breaks into the moment, pulling them apart. Anaiya looks over Seth’s shoulder to see Kaide advancing.
She smiles, despite the intrusion, and reaches into her jeans pocket to retrieve the soundmatcher. The hard planes dig into her palm as she squeezes it tightly one last time, a silent thanks to this technological accomplice.
She offers it to Kaide, palm upwards, watching it glitter in the izakaya lights. He smiles in return, the hint of tequila softening his typically sharp eyes. “You find your mystery sound?” he asks, plucking it from her hand and rolling it in his.
A hidden question lingers under the surface of his query. It calls to the uncertainty of her unsettled mind. She is not sure whether he put it there or whether it is only her ears that can hear it.
Relax. It’s over. You’ve won. Enjoy the moment.
The truth of her exhortations is clear, but still her limbic mind nags.
What have you won? What will you lose?
Once upon a time, the incendiary whispers of her limbic brain would have caused her untold grief. But no longer. She has mastered the workings of her paradoxical brain. Can manipulate the switches that erect and dismantle the barriers between the two minds. So she shuts down the limbic brain, muting it behind the dense structures of her neocortex. And smiles. “Yes. I found it.”
“Out of curiosity,” he says, “what was it?”
She turns her mind to the afternoon in the bar, replaying the encounter with Kaide, working through the microcosm of details to remember the song she had chosen as her cover story. It comes to her with effort, initially through a haze of white noise and static, but slowly crystallising into an exact replica of the sound. The high-pitched rumbling that filled her ears that night at the air recycler with Seth. Dense and light all at the same time. So like an air recycler, but different – more timid, more vulnerable.
Beat.
“It was a synthfly,” she says.
* * *
IT DOESN’T TAKE Anaiya long to find Rehhd in the crowd. She stands at the pool table, slender arms draped down a cue. Around her, Elementals weave and jostle, electric in their movements, extreme in their emotions. But Rehhd just stands there.
There is an atypical calmness to her – as if the hunger has drained from her and she is sated. It bothers Anaiya, even as Seth drags her in the opposite direction to a calmer corner of the izakaya.
“I’ll grab drinks, do you want anything in particular?” he says, shouting to be heard.
Anaiya shakes her head and leans back against the velvet-clad wall. The tables and assorted chairs scattered around Veritas are already occupied. She doesn’t mind – her position against the wall affords a generous view of the izakaya and its inhabitants, allowing her to survey the scene while protecting her from similar scrutiny.
From here she can see Seth, three lines deep at the bar, idly chatting to a small group of Elementals; and Kaide, sitting at a table with his usual crowd, deep in discussion; and Rehhd, still at the pool table, patiently waiting for her next turn, a small smile dancing at the corners of her mouth but never directed at anyone or anything.
/>
Anaiya frowns. Seeing Rehhd so preternaturally calm has unsettled her. She had wanted to come tonight and see Rehhd her usual buoyant, gravitational, impossibly charismatic self. To see her brought low from her lofty heights. To take that pleasure from Rehhd and make it hers.
But there is no wild delight to siphon from, no ecstasy to steal. It blurs Anaiya’s anticipation, dulling the edges, draining the brightness.
Snap out of it.
The words bounce uselessly in her mind, unable to break the fixation.
“Hey, Base to Anaiya…”
She blinks, dragging her gaze from Rehhd.
“I figured we could start with lys and end with tequila,” Seth says, handing her the narrow glass tumbler.
She throws a quick glance to the bar she had just seen him standing at. The crowd has shifted – new faces, different patterns.
“Everything OK?” Seth asks, pulling her gaze back to him.
“Yeah,” she says quickly. Too quickly.
She takes a sip of the lys, the slick alcohol lightened by a second, effervescent liquid. The tiny bubbles tingle in her throat as she swallows, accelerating the enhanced alcohol through her bloodstream.
Seth leans into the wall next to her, their shoulders grazing. She leans a little closer, finding comfort in at least the immovability of this, and him.
“Good?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she replies, slower. And this time she means it.
* * *
AN HOUR into the curfew and the lyseracid has settled in to coat Anaiya’s neural pathways. The lights seem warmer, colours more vibrant and a generic feeling of happiness, of some tinny brightness, moves across her body in long waves.
She waits patiently at the bar, content to trail her fingers over the solid countertop. A shiver runs down her neck, solidifying into a general pressure. She leans into it before looking up at the source, expecting to see Seth. Instead finding Eamon.
“Anaiya.”
His voice is low and gravelly. It seems almost unbearable in the lightness of the izakaya.
“Eamon.”
“I’m surprised to see you here with Seth,” he murmurs, fingers still lingering at the base of her neck, pressing softly at her clavicle.
Anaiya looks over her shoulder, past Eamon’s fingers, to where Seth is absorbed in a multi-player game of pool. She remembers her encounter with him at the Lavoir, the initial attraction, the strange weight that had interrupted their own game.
“I thought you were more like me, Anaiya – hungry for something a little more challenging.”
She looks back to Eamon.
“I have my challenges,” she says, disengaging from his touch and walking away.
“Artistic challenges don’t count,” he calls after her. “We all have those.”
She heads towards the pool table, her path a sine wave between izakaya debris and microcosms of Elementals, to where Seth still lingers. He looks up as she approaches and instantly she is transported back to that afternoon in the Lavoir. It seems like a lifetime ago and, tonight, in a way, it is.
“Care to challenge, butterfly?” he calls to her when she gets closer.
She plucks a stray cue leaning against the table.
“Losers first,” she says, pointing the stick at him.
* * *
THE TABLE IS a mosaic of coloured balls in motion. One by one, they tumble towards their own dark abyss, some falling heavy, others teetering before they disappear.
The game is different to the last. Seth is more hesitant, playing with more focus and structure. Anaiya is less confident, her Peacekeeper brashness dulled – inviting missteps and rookie mistakes. She hits the red orbs, instead of her yellow, and two shots running she sends the white ball tumbling into a dark hole after her target.
Throughout it all is the steady exchange of teasing. Seth brushes past Anaiya to take his shots, whispering playful jibes in her ears. She retaliates by rapping his knuckles with her own cue, darting out of reach when he stands to respond.
They laugh, touch, tease, until there is only the black ball left. And like last time, Anaiya doesn’t feel the weight until she has taken the shot and the black ball sinks into the depths of the far pocket. She lets her baton fall back against the wall behind her, no longer wanting to touch it.
Seth is grinning, bending in a mock flourish as he walks towards her. She can’t avert her eyes, watching as he draws nearer, her faint smile a pale reflection of his. She turns her back to the table as he rounds on her, stopping just centimetres away.
Beat. Beat. Beat.
The pause is interminable. Until it isn’t. He sets his hands either side of her on the table, trapping her against the edge. He opens his mouth to say something, but she jumps into the space before he can claim it.
“What happened that night after Soylent? With Kaide and Cressida?” The words tumble out of her mouth unbidden, riding on the wave of lys sedating her neocortex. She continues before she can regain focus and stifle her inhibited tongue. “Everything changed after that. Why? What happened that night?”
For a moment, he just looks at her. No surprise flits across his face, no resentment or anger. Just resignation and something softer, something heavier. His face transforms with the weight of it, yet he still offers her a tired smile. “This week has been so long,” he starts softly, his gaze lowering to where the toes of their boots touch on the izakaya floor, sticky with spilt drinks.
And she knows he is talking as much to himself as to her.
“So much longer than seven days…It’s strange to think you can fit several lifetimes into such a small slice of time. In the scheme of things, this week is a grain of sand in the Wasteland…but even a grain of sand holds more atoms than there are stars in the universe.”
He looks up, his forehead creased, his eyes imploring her to understand.
“Seth, what happened?”
Finally, he shifts his hands, raking the right through his hair in that familiar tell of his. “They never trusted you like I did. They couldn’t see you were one of us.”
He shrugs, green eyes flashing, hands still agitated. “You were different. God, you were different.” His laugh is light. It sounds wrong against the heaviness of the words. “But being different is kind of a revolutionary act in itself, no? And I liked you. I really liked you. And I haven’t liked anyone in a really long time.”
The words are coming faster, his confession tripping over itself. Her heart tightens; she knows this is building to something terrible.
“I was supposed to have vetted you. As a precaution. To gauge your reaction before…before you saw the mural. Before you knew…”
“Before I knew what?”
His eyes flicker with indecision, a familiar anguish. “I need to trust you.”
She feels trapped. His need is so raw.
“Anaiya, can I trust you?”
She doesn’t get a chance to respond. A roar erupts near the bar.
Anaiya turns, just in time to see Kaide land a heavy punch on Eamon’s jaw.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“WHAT THE FUCK is going on?” Seth’s voice is a hard whisper.
They have retreated to the wet room of the izakaya, away from the eyes of other Air Elementals and the dense music. Anaiya hangs back against the wall, feeling the beats buzz through the solid mass – happy to watch as the drama unfolds between Seth, Kaide, Eamon and Rehhd.
While Seth’s words are directed equally to Kaide and Eamon, it is Rehhd who answers. “Seth, you don’t need to moderate this.”
She is still so calm. Even faced with Kaide’s swollen eye and Eamon’s busted lip dribbling blood down his chin, with Seth’s intensity and the palpable sense of tension. So calm.
Something is not right.
“What have you done?”
All four Air Elementals spin to regard her, Kaide and Eamon registering surprise that she is there. Seth still livid. Rehhd still calm.
Anaiya turns her full gaze to Rehhd.
“What have you done?”
Seth’s face shifts from rage to confusion, flitting between Anaiya and Rehhd. Anaiya pays him no heed, solely focussed on Rehhd.
Moments shift into seconds.
And then Rehhd smiles. A small, satisfied curve of her mouth. “You really are so perceptive, Anaiya,” she says. “Seth used to be like you. Hungry, but restrained. Introverted, but perceptive.”
The focus of the room has switched to Rehhd. Eamon’s eyes are guarded, his face still flushed. Kaide is glowering. But now it is Seth who is calm.
He stands arms folded across his chest, stance relaxed, muscles tight. In the harsh light of the wet room, the angles of his face and body cast distinct shadows, and for a moment he is like Anaiya – a Peacekeeper trapped in the body of an Air Elemental.
“His vision for the Resistance was a thing of power and beauty.”
Anaiya’s mind hears the words in replay, registering moments after Rehhd has actually uttered them. A cold sweat tingles at the back of her neck.
No, no, no.
“He saw what no one else had. He saw the dystopia while everyone else was drugged on the false utopia. He saw the oppression, the injustice, the wrongness.”
Anaiya’s mind is in chaos, a burr of knots and tension. Memories and half-remembered conversations assault the cracks in her brain.
No one else sees her distress. They are all too consumed by Rehhd and her deadly words.
“He showed it to us. He led us towards this bright new hope. And then he said that we weren’t to chase it. That we were to wait patiently.”
Eamon huffs, his face an open scowl. Kaide glares at him and, for a moment, Anaiya thinks the fight will erupt again. But Rehhd continues speaking, sucking the room’s energy and concentration towards her.
“So we did. We waited patiently. We waited. And waited. We cultivated supporters, revealing to them what had been revealed to us, encouraging the rage we too had felt. We painted our pretty pictures on silent walls. This was our resistance.
Resistance: Divided Elements (Book 1) Page 23
