He frowns, a short, pinched flaw in his otherwise hardened face, and then shakes his head. He exits the room silently, not bothering to look back at her.
She, on the other hand, can’t take her eyes away from his retreating form.
Done with this stage. This stage.
Her relief at surviving Niamh’s interrogation disintegrates. A dull panic begins to rise in her mind.
What is yet to come?
THIRTY
THE REST of the day passes in a state of anxiety. Every footfall or murmured conversation in the corridor sends Anaiya into a panic. They’ve figured it out. They know I’ve been lying. They’re coming to get me.
The click of the lock on her door sounds like a termination serum box closing shut. A tall Water Technician enters the room. “You’re required in Lab 19.2.”
Anaiya stares at him, uncomprehending, waiting for him to give her more details.
“Immediately,” he says. “I’m here to escort you.”
Two large male Earth Elementals enter the room. One unfolds a wheelchair, the other strides towards the bed.
Anaiya moves to sit up, but her body refuses to cooperate. She raises her hands uselessly against the advances of the Elemental, who sweeps her roughly into his arms before depositing her into the chair.
“Please. Please, no. Please. No.”
Her mind erupts into sheer panic.
They’ve finally come for me. They’ve come to Execute me.
She writhes in the chair, thrashing against the immovable arms of the Earth Elemental. It is all in vain, her useless protest ending with a sharp sting at her neck. The pacifying serum runs cold through her veins, numbing her emotions and energy.
A slow and silent ten minutes later, Anaiya reaches her destination. Lab 19.2 is like any other lab in Last Defence – white, sterile, fluorescent, cold. The Earth Elementals discharge her from the wheelchair like a random object that has lost interest and usefulness. They disclothe her unceremoniously, rough hands brushing over her skin like gravel, her arms yanked into the sleeves of a cottonex slip. They lay her on the cold, steel gurney, pushing her back through time to her realignment. Their job completed, the two Earth Elementals exit the lab without a second glance, leaving her alone with the Technician.
He stares at her. The seconds passing in loud, heavy beats.
“Before I do this,” he says, finally. “I want to ask you something.”
Her earlier panic tries to work its way up from under the heavy cloth of chemicals. She tries to work her mouth, tries and fails to give voice to her desperate supplication.
Please don’t kill me.
He takes her silence for acquiescence.
“Did it change you?”
It is a curiosity. But, maybe, it is also a chance at redemption.
Anaiya thinks back through the last few weeks, re-living and cataloguing the experiences and emotions. She feels them, as if her mind is running its finger over their contours and textures. Feels them as if they are corporeal, as if they span before her in this clinical space.
She shakes her head, barely a wobble, realising that this truth – that her realignment did not change her – may save her.
His face drops, that same disappointment from her post-realignment discussion broadcast on his features. It lasts only a second, before the professional facade resumes its place. “Just as well,” he says, all business, the curiosity a corpse in his eyes. “Given that you are being realigned to your full Fire identity.”
Relief, cold and bright, washes over her. It is as if she has finally taken a deep lungful of clean air, not realising she’d been holding her breath for so long. Her eyes leak with warm tears.
She is not being Executed. Of course not – that would have required a trial, formal enquiry, a right of reply – all things her paranoid and panicked brain has overlooked.
She is not going to die. And more than just escaping the Executioner’s needle, she is being rewarded. They are giving her the one thing she has wanted so desperately since the first day of her realignment. They are restoring her identity.
She will be a Peacekeeper again.
Even though the news reaches her from the lips of a Water Elemental, it still sounds like music.
Now she is ready for the invasion of the needle. Ready for the warmth and the music and the vibrant images. She doesn’t fight it this time. Her limbic brain mumbles its protest, but she shuts it out.
She surrenders.
Harsh, guttural, metallic music assaults her ears. Dense beats and rapid, chaotic rhythms pull painfully at her neurons. Chemicals urge her body to tense in a state of readiness.
And then there emerges the image of the dead female in Precinct 20. Still vivid, still compelling. Presented in colourless monochrome, the white bone fragments scatter in stark contrast to the black pool of blood around the broken body. Blood spatter patterns swirl in her mind, a surreal moving picture offset by the static grimace on the victim’s face, the dead set to her unseeing eyes.
The music builds to a crescendo in her ears, mixing with her blood chemicals to produce an urge within her. But the feeling is muted, hidden behind a strange grief and melancholy and an utter fascination with the work of art before her.
The music transforms into a cacophony of screams and shrieks – primal sounds of pain, despair and desperation. They pull at the fire within her, but just as quickly plait into a rhythm and melody of their own, becoming a macabre soundtrack that her Air-aligned mind can appreciate.
Eventually the images and noises fade. In the shadows of her mind, she feels another prick of the needle at her elbow. Her limbs, previously tense and alert, now fall calm and still. Her thoughts become stretched and sticky, melting through time, before her mind shuts down and she falls into yet another sedated and dreamless sleep.
* * *
EVERY DAY they drag her to a new laboratory, where she is pricked and then assaulted with chaotic sounds and fragmented memories of the Precinct 20 female, of free-running, of Heterodoxy. Each one stokes the flames within her core, presents her with an art to appreciate, pulls her between rage and sadness and determination and despair.
She wakes from each session emotionally stable – no tears, no violent outbursts, no shame – just calm, as if the sands of her mind have finally descended from their windstorm and are settling back to the ground, in a new, but structurally-sound, arrangement.
She becomes more thoughtful, less tense. More content, less conflicted. And so, when Niamh enters her room on the fourth day of the second week, she doesn’t respond as she otherwise has. She simply looks up at him and surrenders a smile, and he surprises her by offering one back.
Well, this is unexpected.
He walks over to the bed and sits at the end, balancing on the edge. They don’t speak, but the silence is comfortable.
“The trial has concluded,” he says finally.
Rehhd’s trial. It commenced not long after her arrest, taking place in an undisclosed, high-security location and presided over by a panel of four senior and anonymous Elementals, each randomly selected from their respective Elements. Niamh hadn’t divulged much about it to Anaiya, despite the fact he had been responsible for presenting her evidence. Isolated from the trial and caught up in her own tribulations, Anaiya had infrequently thought about it.
“And?” she asks, now curious as to the fate of the Elemental she has wrongly accused and condemned as the Resistance leader.
“The Execution is scheduled for this coming Third day.”
In less than a week’s time, Rehhd would die.
But will the Heterodoxy be terminated?
The thought claws at Anaiya’s newfound peace. Heterodoxy would die if its leader were terminated. Left free, who knew how the Heterodoxy would continue to manifest – if it did survive the loss of a treasured comrade.
Seth – his is the only memory with the ability to excite and antagonise both of her identities. She pulls her knees to her chest, drags he
r fingers along her calves, pushing harder to make the muscles sing in pain, manipulating a small distraction.
“Did she register a defence?”
It was procedural fairness in trials to allow the accused an opportunity to defend themselves. In most cases it is a high-risk venture – while a sympathetic defence can return a not-guilty outcome and expunge an arrest record, a rejected defence can indicate systemic Unorthodoxy and land more time in a repentance cell. With Execution at stake, Anaiya would take the risk.
“No,” Niamh replies. “Neither she nor Eamon have whispered a word since they were arrested.”
“How hard did you press them?”
Images of bruises, cuts, burns and sleepless nights tease at Anaiya’s subconscious.
“Hard.”
She sighs. “Where’s Eamon?”
“In a repentance cell. Three more weeks until he’s released.”
“He won’t see the Execution?”
A grim smile twists Niamh’s face. “I’m sure he’ll see the replays.”
The two of them lapse into another silence. It slinks between and around them, brushing them, nudging them, comforting them.
“What else aren’t you telling me?” Anaiya finally asks, recognising a strange weight in the silence. It complements the new softness in Niamh, the long, drawn-out pauses.
He turns to face her, and Anaiya feels the dread of their previous conversation morph into something sharper.
“How are your realignment sessions going?”
It is an unexpected question and for a moment Anaiya thinks it comes from a place of concern. Over the last week, the realignment sessions have been nothing but a welcome routine – a way of ordering her days and giving her respite from the guilt and confusion that bind to her thoughts of Rehhd and Seth and the izakaya.
“Easier than I expected…” she says, her words dying slowly at the fall of Niamh’s face. “How do you think my realignment sessions are going?”
He picks at his fingernails. Anaiya has seen him do it before – just before the Technician had taken her away for realignment compatibility testing; at the recycler that first time they saw the mural; at the Healing Facility after she had torn up her arm and shredded her calf. She belatedly recognises it as his tell for inner turmoil.
The tension is suffocating and she is caught between wanting to hear something, anything, and fearing that once it’s spoken, it will never be erased.
“There’s a problem, Ani.”
The ominous words spark a detailed explanation – a confession. At the end of it, Anaiya sits silent, her brain unable to process anything but the words Niamh has spent the last ten minutes telling her.
Her realignment isn’t working. Her limbic brain is still too dominant. Still too closely aligned to Air.
“There was no way to expect this,” he says. “That was the whole point of the testing before the first realignment procedure – to confirm that your brain was elastic, able to be manipulated. The testing proved that your mind was compatible with realignment. Realigning back to your true Element should have been easier, if anything, than realigning your mind to a foreign Element.”
“I – I don’t – I don’t understand,” Anaiya stammers. “How can this happen?”
Niamh shrugs, empty of answers.
Inside, Anaiya’s stomach churns.
Water Elementals, she thinks bitterly. Always so certain of what they know, until faced with their errors. No, not their errors.
Water Elementals did not make errors. The science was never wrong.
Only the data.
“I don’t know how it happened,” Niamh says. “After the successful testing and then the successful procedure, there were no concerns. The realignment was an achievement with no equal. A resounding success.”
“What happens now?” she asks. “What do I do?”
“Prepare, Ani,” Niamh replies immediately. “You have to prepare. There are three realignment sessions left. You need to make sure they are successful.”
* * *
ANAIYA’S MUSCLES complain loudly as she works through the reps. The Last Defence gym is empty, quarantined from other Elementals so she can prepare alone.
Sprint, kash vault, double kong, tic tac. Repeat. Sprint, kash vault, double kong, tic tac. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
The sweat beads on her skin, stirring as she picks up her velocity in the stale air of the gymnasium. She is too slow, too clunky. Her movements dense when they should be light; measured when they should be fearless.
She pauses long enough to plug in her earphones and queue the selected soundtrack: a loud rush of music, heavy with deep beat and frantic, harsh melodies. Once she had welcomed the strange cacophony of Fire music; now she grits her teeth and waits for her brain to accept it. Regulating her breathing, she forces her body to acclimatise to the new stimulus and then begins again.
Sprint, kash vault, double kong, tic tac. Repeat.
It is a punishment. Her muscles and mind alike throb with exertion and pain.
You’re just unaccustomed to it. It will get better with practice.
The words sound hollow. She pushes harder, stilling her mind, letting her body take over. A flash of movement near the gymnasium entry pulls her out of concentration. Niamh steps into the vast space, his solid frame easily dwarfed by the high walls. He is early.
Anaiya forces her mind to focus, working through the final three reps, forcing her biomechanics to move faster, bend lower, reach higher, transition smoother. On her final rep, she has reached optimal performance, hitting the levels she used to hit as a Peacekeeper. Her sprint is fast, her kash vault clean.
The twin wall obstacle races to meet her. She ignores the sight of Niamh blurring in her long vision, concentrating on visualising the large cavity between the two walls and adjusting her speed and stride accordingly.
Three steps away, two steps, one.
Bending her knees, she positions herself into a split step, before pushing her body up and forwards. Her hands graze the top of the first wall, gripping at the far edge and pushing off to give her the momentum she needs to clear the gap and reach the second wall. Her body elongates, stretching into a smooth arc, her arms now reaching for the second wall.
She reaches it in an almost-handstand, her arms extended down straight to the wall, her palms flat against the ledge. Her legs pull down and through the tunnel her arms have created, sweeping through as she pushes off to clear the obstacle at speed.
The momentum carries her farther than her previous attempts, her landing steps placing her just metres from where Niamh stands, arms crossed against his chest.
A wide grin threatens to break her face, her heart beating solidly in her chest, endorphins flowing uninhibited through her veins. Her execution was flawless, her final rep a triumph.
She looks over to Niamh expectantly, confident he is returning her grin. But his face is immovable.
Something sharp spikes in her chest, deflating her euphoria as quickly as it bloomed.
“You’re too slow on your pull through,” he says, unfolding his arms and walking towards the mats at the far corner of the gym.
Anaiya stares for a moment at his back before mutely following him.
The sound of Niamh’s hoodie zipping undone grates. He tosses it to the wall and turns to face her. “I want you to forget everything you know about close combat training,” he says. “We’re not here to practise restraint or calculation. Your problem isn’t controlling the fire. It’s finding it.”
She nods. It’s nothing she hasn’t already concluded herself.
“Bring up your vitals – we’re tracking adrenalin, noradrenaline and acetylcholine levels, and amygdala activity,” he says, tapping on his wristplate.
Music floods the space, the gym’s wireless audio system picking up on Niamh’s wristplate identity.
He widens his stance, flexing slightly at the knees, preparing himself for the sparring session.
“Get angry, Ani.�
�
It is an invitation. Anaiya launches at him.
* * *
“YOU’RE OVER-THINKING IT,” Niamh yells. “Let go.”
* * *
“OK, break,” he says. They halt their session, pausing to rehydrate and debrief. “What are your vitals?”
Anaiya pulls up the statistics on her wristplate. “Adrenalin – High. Noradrenalin – Low. Acetylcholine – High. Amygdala activity – Medium.”
Niamh grunts. “Not good enough. You need to get angrier, Ani. Stop holding back. You need to delve deep into your core. You have to find that fire, Ani. You have to make it roar.”
The unspoken or else hangs heavy between them.
Or else you will fail the realignment. Or else you will be marked as Heterodox. Or else you will be Executed.
THIRTY-ONE
AT THE END of the sparring session, Niamh leaves her without saying a word. There had been moments of encouragement, where it seemed she could tap into her true nature. But they hadn’t lasted and the frustration, shared between her and Niamh, returned with renewed force.
She sits alone on the padded mat, staring down at her lap, unwilling to be confronted with the large, imposing space. Unwilling to reflect again on her failures.
There are only eight hours until her third and final realignment session. Eight hours before her final test reveals the truth.
She forces herself to stand on wobbly legs, make her silent way back to the small room that has been her home for the last few weeks.
Home.
It was a foreign concept to her before her realignment. What was home, but an overly emotional attachment to an inanimate and arbitrary space? An unnecessary affectation of Earth Elementals and Air Elementals.
Nonetheless, she regards the familiar space as a kind of sanctuary and takes comfort in its four walls. The curtains are drawn when she walks in, the room shrouded in an almost-darkness. She doesn’t bother opening them or turning on the light. Darkness is also a welcomed safe-house. She undresses quickly, methodically folding her clothes and placing them on the nearby desk.
Resistance: Divided Elements (Book 1) Page 26
