“But the Fire Elementals took away our pictures. Erasing them first from sight and then from memory. And then they caged us up, separating us from the night. And then they roughed us up, piling cuts on scars on bruises.
“And still, our wise and visionary leader told us to be patient.”
It is so quiet in the small, bright room. Anaiya can hear nothing but Rehhd’s voice and the blood thrumming in her ears.
“And so we waited. Because we loved him. We waited, until we could bear the weight no more.”
Anaiya’s palms throb, pain blooming where her fingernails have punctured the skin.
The silence that follows is more oppressive than the steady barrage of nuclear words. It blankets them all in a dread, a white noise of heavy foreboding. It stretches interminably, fraying Anaiya’s thoughts, setting her skin crawling. And worse is the haunted voice of the one who breaks it.
“What have you done?” asks Seth.
* * *
THE STAIRWELL LEADING from the wet room to the storeroom is narrow and dark. A musty smell of sweat and sand and dust tickles Anaiya’s nostrils. She follows the other four, led by Rehhd and Eamon, to the depths of the izakaya. The sounds of the curfew lockdown party fade into nothing as they descend.
The basement level arrives earlier than she expects. Her feet hit the stone floor with a jolt and it takes a moment to recover her balance, to move from behind Kaide’s broad girth and take a more complete survey of her new surroundings.
The room is dark like the stairwell. Her eyes slowly consume the last echoes of light to pull details into focus. Harsh, angular shapes materialise as boxes, and the softer shape in the corner –
A bright light erupts in the room, Seth’s wristplate diode shattering the darkness and shooting pain into Anaiya’s eyes. She clenches them shut, gradually releasing the pressure as they grow accustomed to the shift.
At first all she sees are the boots. Her boots.
No. Not my boots.
Peacekeeper boots.
It’s a Peacekeeper Trainee. His arms are wrenched behind him, his legs stretched out against the dense floor and shackled with cable ties at the ankles. A single swathe of black, folded rayon interrupts the youthful face, covering his eyes and taming the hair that falls raggedly against pale cheeks.
Even with the blindfold, she recognises him – the young Trainee from that day at the Samedi Markets. So long ago. A lifetime ago.
And again, as when she saw the first Heterodox mural, the vision arrests her heart. Her mind screams for her to shut her eyes against the abomination, but fear of seeing worse in the shadows prevents her from following the order. She is shaking.
Clear it, Anaiya.
She feels her mind grind against the rising panic, like a gear forced to push back against its own momentum.
Clear. It.
The pressure scrapes at her skull, screeching with the resistance. And then, finally, something gives. And her mind is shattered. But silent.
“Notre dieu, Rehhd,” Seth murmurs, his soft words falling loud in the intimate space. “What have you done?”
“We’ve caged one of them,” Eamon spits, no longer satisfied with playing the silent accomplice. “Let’s see how they like being locked up, beaten down, emptied out.”
His words rush out in a stream of spiky vitriol.
“You fucking morons,” Kaide says, clenched fists tight by his side. “You’ve ruined us.”
“You ignorant fool,” Rehhd counters. “Patience is a losing strategy. Worse. It is no strategy.” She flings an accusing hand at the bound Peacekeeper. “They torture us. They lock us away and scar us. There is no change for them. No hope for reform. Otpor is not a functional collective. It is a dysfunctional dictatorship, ruled by them. Owned by them. We don’t have to obey them any more, kneel to their harsh penalties.
“If we can bring one of their own low, if we show the rest of Otpor they are not the invincible power we have let them become, they will lose their enchantment over the other Elementals. We will show them to be weak. And the rest of the world will trample them in their haste to break the shackles of a corrupted Orthodoxy.”
Kaide opens his mouth to spit his rejoinder, but it is Anaiya who speaks next.
“When did you take him?” Her voice is steel to her ears.
Confusion splits the angry faces before her.
“When?” she repeats.
“What does it matter?” Rehhd says, turning her attention back to Kaide.
“When?” Louder this time. More commanding.
“Why, Anaiya?” Seth has moved closer to her.
She ignores him, doing the mathematics in her head. One hour and forty minutes since the curfew began. One hour since the Trainee would have been expected to make communication with his shadow Peacekeeper. Fifteen minutes for headquarters to mobilise the search function.
“How many communication patches are around here? Within a five-k radius?”
The others regard her strangely. Except Kaide. His face and body have gone very still.
You always were suspicious, weren’t you?
“Three,” he says.
Leaving forty-five minutes for curfew patrols to search the nearby properties for a missing Trainee.
She turns to Seth. “Get out of here,” she says.
He stares at her, but doesn’t move.
She turns to Kaide. “Get him out of here. Now.”
“Anaiya – it’s curfew.”
“Get him. Out. Now.”
“Anaiya, what is going on?” It is Seth. She hears the confusion in his voice, still laced with the sting of betrayal.
“Just who, exactly, do you think you are?” Rehhd says. “You may be fucking one of us, but that does not make you one of us.”
Anaiya ignores her, striding over to Kaide. Their eyes clash in an unspoken war, full of promise that will need to be satisfied at a later date. She holds his gaze, forcing him to recognise her true self.
“You have three minutes, maybe less,” she whispers, low and harsh. For his ears only. “Until a contingent of senior Peacekeepers access this izakaya and detain you all.”
His eyes betray no emotion. His steely gaze remains fixed on hers.
“Get him out of here. Now.”
“What about Rehhd and Ea–?”
“They stay.”
“An–”
“No. They stay.”
A hatred – a pure, white-hot loathing – flares from his eyes to hers. And that promise; they will both pay for this betrayal.
“Let’s go,” he says roughly, grabbing Seth’s arm, leading him to the basement-level exit.
Seth tries to shake it off, but Kaide’s grip holds firm.
“Anaiya?” Seth’s voice rolls like rain clouds, soft but dangerous.
Betrayal is so thick in this tiny room that Anaiya can taste it. She swallows it, a bitter pill with no sugar coating.
“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” Rehhd demands, her calm finally broken.
Anaiya turns from Kaide and Seth, shutting out Seth’s questions and demands, focussing all her attention and energy on Rehhd and Eamon.
“He was right, you know,” she says softly. “You both are fucking morons.”
Rehhd strides towards her, arm lifting as if to strike. Anaiya laughs, a hollow, guttural sound. She steps in smoothly to meet her, snatching her wrist and pivoting to put Rehhd at her back. With Rehhd’s arm twisted awkwardly and leveraged on her shoulder, Anaiya uses her left hand to drive her grip upwards, hearing the loud pop as Rehhd’s shoulder dislocates, the snap as her radial bone breaks moments later.
For Anaiya, it all happens in slow motion. A subtle dance stretching languidly across the mere seconds it takes to complete. The room shatters with Rehhd’s scream and Anaiya lets her body drop to intercept Eamon as he rushes at her. She spins underneath his grip, turning a wide pirouette and preparing herself for the counter-attack.
She doesn’t get the chance to use it. Five Peacekeepers
barrel into the room from the stairwell, the first dropping Eamon immediately with a precise stab of her syringe. Another restrains Rehhd, easily avoiding her useless, damaged thrashing.
Anaiya’s body relaxes, tension rushing from her muscles at the sight of the two Elementals laid low. The relief is short-lived: a sharp prick stings at her own neck and sends her into blackness.
TWENTY-EIGHT
IT IS the cold that pulls Anaiya back to consciousness. A long, flat, incessant chill that demands her attention.
Her eyes flutter open, blinking against darkness. She expects to see the crowded space of the izakaya, but her waking provides no transition from the endless blackness.
She raises her hand to wave in front of her face, to test the depth of this darkness, but her arm stops short – banging uselessly against an unforgiving barrier. Confused, she attempts to sit up, her head colliding with another hard surface and laying her back down.
Ignoring the pain that blooms in response, she slides her hands along the floor of her new space, both of them stopping in their journey not two spans from her body.
Her heart accelerates and she closes her eyes tightly, retreating to a place where the darkness is more natural, less threatening. Tighter and tighter, she clenches them, until spots of colour explode.
She forces herself to rein in her rapid breathing, focussing on drawing long, deep breaths, exhaling slowly with purpose. With each passing second, her eyes relax and her heartbeat slows.
Beat. Beat. Beat.
Beat. Beat.
Beat.
She takes another deep breath and relaxes her body.
Tentatively she glides her hands up the walls, pausing before tracing them upwards until they meet in a place not more than twenty centimetres above her solar plexus.
It is just enough room for her to access her wristplate. Touching the screen activates its diode, casting a green tinge over the metal interior. She sighs, the last of her anxiety leaching away.
Blinking against the wristplate’s glow, she stares at the screen. All communication and entertainment functions have been deactivated, a large cross dominating the top right-hand corner of the screen.
Despite this, a single unread message flashes. She taps it, taking strange comfort in the way the nonsensical characters dissolve into comprehensible words.
Got a hit on your wristplate activity to say you were restrained. Report immediately.
She glances at the time stamp and compares it to the one that ticks over in the screen’s top margin. Three hours have passed since Niamh’s message was received.
Why am I still here?
With Niamh monitoring her wristplate, the record of her detention would have been immediately communicated. She shouldn’t be here. He should have had her released by now.
Her agitation threatens to shift into panic. She halts the escalation of her thoughts and emotions, forcing herself to concentrate on the basics.
I am being held in a solo detention cell.
She shifts against the claustrophobic walls, positioning herself, as much as she can, on her side. The movement brings with it the shadows of old pain – a dull ache in her shoulder, a sharp throbbing at her ankle – though she doesn’t remember the injuries.
Wincing against the discomfort, she repositions herself until she is able to turn her head. From this vantage point, she can just make out the faint grey bars that mark the ventilation grid. But, beyond them, there is nothing but deepening darkness.
Flashing her wristplate in the direction of the grid illuminates the bars and sends a fractured swathe of light into the darkness beyond. It stretches and diffuses, growing dimmer until it, too, is sucked up by the darkness. She shifts again, slowly, more gently, returning to her original position.
I have been processed.
She brings up her wristplate. A complex series of swipes and taps moves her through the folder directory until she arrives at her Orthodoxy file. A simple log appears when she opens it.
RESTRAINT and DETENTION. 86. 93C. 93T. 545B. 546C.
It is a long list of offences, ranging from Kidnapping and Affray to Participation in a Criminal Group, Intimidation and Peacekeeper Interference. Her restraint and detention – her implied guilt – the result of her proximity to the captured Trainee and the true offenders.
She remembers, with some satisfaction, her dance with Eamon and Rehhd, but the satisfaction is short-lived, quickly souring when another truth, an unwanted revelation, teases at the edges of her mind.
She taps uselessly on her wristplate, trying in vain to restore the communications function, to patch an urgent call to Niamh. With each attempt, the standard cross becomes more antagonistic, more defiant. In frustration, she shuts off the wristplate screen, sending her back into the empty darkness.
But the darkness brings its own frustrations and terrors. The stark environment, bereft of any distraction, proves a rich soil for her mind to pull memories of words that cannot be erased. And so they grow to consume the tiny space, falling into a loud soundtrack on an endless loop.
His vision for the Resistance was a thing of power and beauty.
How had she got it so wrong? So wrong. So wrong.
Her cheeks are wet. She tries to wipe away the tears, her elbows banging on the invulnerable metal box.
It was never Rehhd.
It was all too obvious, and yet she had missed it. Her tears leave cold trails on her skin.
It was Seth all along.
* * *
A JOLT and loud banging roars into Anaiya’s new existence. Her heart leaps with relief, her eyes springing open to welcome her release from this prison.
Another jolt sends her crashing into the side of the metal box, setting off the pain in her shoulder and ankle. Pushing it aside, she repositions herself until she can see out the ventilation grid. She strains to capture movement, to make sense of this new situation. A loud whirring echoes in the chamber as gravity pushes against Anaiya. The box is moving.
This isn’t a release – it’s a transfer.
The box falls with a loud crash to its resting place and groans echo around her. They build to a high-pitched squeal before dying to a faint rustle. Wind careens through the ventilation grid, but still no light.
Shutting her eyes against the new reality, Anaiya lies still and silent as her coffin races along its unknown path.
The rustling drops and rises in pitch, its rhythm slowing and quickening. Anaiya scratches her fingernails against the metal walls of the box, setting it as a background beat. Scratches alternate with taps, and the knuckles of her right hand rasp and bang on the off beats. The music swells to surround her, stripping the journey of its fear and time of its power.
When the journey finally slows – the rustling growing fainter, the groaning becoming louder – her heart rate is normal and her mind clear.
Again, the box shifts and bangs as it is relocated. But, finally, there is silence. Anaiya turns to stare out the ventilation grid into this new darkness. She pulls up her wristplate to cast her diode over the new environment, but stops as a loud white light courses into the box.
A click sounds and the lid begins to open. Anaiya retreats from the harsh light, cowering in the box with her eyes closed.
“Ani?”
She blinks against the whiteness, slowly focussing on the shadow that stands over her. “Niamh?”
Strong arms reach down to help her up, lifting her out of the box. When the full weight of her body settles on her ankle, she stumbles, inhaling with pain, into Niamh’s chest. He catches her, wrapping his arms under her to support her frame.
“I got you,” he says.
The room they are in is familiar – the loading dock of Anaiya’s former Peacekeeper Command. It is empty, save for the two of them and the discarded metal box. Niamh leads her towards the single door set into the far wall.
“How bad is it?” he asks, looking down at her left foot.
“It’s not good,” she replies.
> He nods and slows his pace as they near the door.
“Stay here,” he says, leaning her against the wall like he would any other damaged weapon. “I’ll be back soon.”
She nods silently, putting all the residual weight on her right foot.
Niamh is true to his word; he returns in a matter of minutes, pushing a wheelchair. He unfolds it and lifts her into it, the soft cushioning a comfort to her compromised limbs.
“We’ve got a disser Earth Elemental in detention,” he explains. “She won’t be needing it for a while.”
He disappears behind the back of the chair and a second later Anaiya is being wheeled into the basement of the command centre. A quick glance at her wristplate tells her it is still pre-dawn. Curfew is in place and the command centre will be relatively quiet. Anaiya is grateful for this small mercy.
Niamh stays silent throughout their journey to his office on the second floor. A few Peacekeepers turn curious faces towards them, but quickly look away. Anaiya lowers her head, stares at the stained threads of her kevlar jeans, and doesn’t raise it until they reach Niamh’s office and the door is closed.
“What happened out there, Ani?”
He walks around to lean against the standard office desk, his arms tense against its edges.
“We were blindsided,” she says.
“Who’s we?”
Beat.
Memories of Kaide’s anger, Seth’s defeat, flash brightly in her mind. She struggles to tamp them down. “Me. Us…The Task Force.”
To her own ears, it sounds weak, but Niamh merely nods.
“I knew something was up when I saw Rehhd at the izakaya. She was too calm – self-satisfied. I called her out on it and she led me down to the basement with Eamon.”
“What did your future-search show you?”
The question slams into her, an immovable object in a poorly executed kash vault. It stuns her, her mind racing for an alternative answer. Because she hadn’t future-searched. She tries to remember the last time she had – her mind recounting all the times in her recent past where she had let emotion, rather than logic, determine her next move.
Niamh’s eyes narrow. She needs to give him an answer.
Resistance: Divided Elements (Book 1) Page 24
