Resistance: Divided Elements (Book 1)

by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky

  The bed is cold under the thin sheets, but she doesn’t move – just lies there, eyes open and taking in the green tinge of the softly illuminated ceiling. The light flares and a vibration tingles at her wrist. She doesn’t bother plugging in her lifeline, tapping on her wristplate to answer the call and activate the speaker function.

  “Hey, Ani.” Niamh’s voice echoes in the confined space.

  “Hey.”

  Even now, with all that has gone between them and all that lies ahead, there is still silence. She closes her eyes against the green glow, plunging into a deeper darkness.

  “Good luck tomorrow,” he finally says.

  She exhales. Frustration and resignation mingle in the sigh. There is so much left unsaid between them, things they are still keeping from each other, secrets hinted at but never told. They were so close.

  Were we?

  Close, like ‘home’, has a different meaning now. Her alignment has changed everything.

  “Thanks,” she says.

  And then there is just the sound of their breathing. She imagines Niamh, as he was that night she discovered the Heterodoxy, leaning against a lone street light, bathed in bright fluorescence that sent shadows across his angles.

  The click of the disconnection comes without any preamble. A light snap and then silence, with only Anaiya’s breathing to break it.

  * * *

  THE BUZZING at her wrist and persistence of daylight surprises her when she awakes. Pulled from her dreamless sleep, she showers and dresses on auto-pilot, keeping her mind light and free of complex thoughts, dangerous scenarios and impossible questions.

  She zips up her black vinyl boots and stands just as the Technician enters the room. The Earth escorts are no longer needed: Anaiya has proven herself cooperative. He nods, satisfied with her punctuality, and leads her silently from her room.

  Unlike the previous sessions, he deviates from their usual course to the laboratories and heads down an unfamiliar hallway. The change worries Anaiya, but her stride doesn’t falter. She banishes it from her thoughts and focusses on the small things, the things she can control – her pace, her breathing, the set of her shoulders, the set of her expressions.

  The calmness leaves her when they reach their destination. The round, white-tiled room spans before her, pulling her back into her past as it stretches her inevitably towards her future.

  A second Technician walks up to Anaiya and begins fitting her lifeline to the small black box.

  Deja vu.

  It is a commonly used piece of pidgin slang, especially popular with Air Elementals. She hears it in Seth’s voice and translates it into the modern language of Otpor.

  Already seen.

  And she has – the sights and sensations settle on her like a mirrored copy of her original realignment. The familiar tingle of energy runs along her skin, the perfect opposite to the heavy dread that drags at her core.

  The needle pierces her skin with the expectant sting and she is left alone, again, in the stark white dome. She looks down at her vague reflection in the pale and polished concrete floor. And in that second she wonders which is the true Anaiya. The unanswered question is ripped from her mind as the floor and surrounding tiles begin to shimmer with colour.

  She closes her eyes, picturing the simulation as it was last time. Precinct 5, En Dahm, the motionless body lying face down, the rivulets of blood, the fleeing perpetrator. She zones in on the details, willing her body to respond appropriately. The fire builds within her, her neocortex settles into its role. She is ready.

  This is it.

  She has moments before the illusion is complete and she is absorbed into the simulation.

  Unleash the fire.

  * * *

  IT IS NOT STREETS of Precinct 5, or the imposing facade of En Dahm, that greets Anaiya. The ground beneath her feet is gravelly and the only structures that draw her eye are the dense and ever-humming air recyclers.

  Her first steps are hesitant, her skin crawling at the sound of her boots on the broken ground. She swivels around, confronting the Border Wall that looms just metres away. Shadowy movements crystallise into scores of Border Watchers – they line the parapets, a hundred eyes focussed on Anaiya.

  Avoiding their gaze, she ducks her head and begins her walk through the maze of recyclers. She doesn’t pick up her pace, her feet beating out a measured rhythm. Around her the light and shadows shift, illuminating her one minute, casting her in darkness the next.

  A sound in the distance breaks through the noise of her journey. A groan. A whimper. She walks towards it, her ears guiding her to the source. It gets louder and louder with every step, catching the breath in her throat.

  The cold surrounds her. It seeps up from the ground, reflecting off the dense concrete, carried on the Wasteland breeze that begins to pick up in intensity.

  Anaiya hesitates before rounding the next recycler, knowing what she will see, unwilling to confront it.

  The groans and whimpers become a muted sobbing. The sound pulls at her feet, dragging her forwards, entreating her to look…to bear witness.

  The recycler in front of her is unnaturally illuminated, its grey surface bleached in unrelenting fluorescence. The source of the light is unclear and Anaiya does not turn to look for it, utterly absorbed by the scene that is unfolding before her.

  The figure has its back turned to Anaiya, but she knows instinctively that it is Seth – can see it in the lines of his shoulders, the set of his stance. Anaiya holds her breath, forcing her body to stillness, suddenly afraid that the smallest sound or movement will cause him to turn.

  Another groan, his shoulders hunch forward. His breathing comes in raspy waves. Reaching up, he smears a long red streak against the concrete surface in front of him. There is no brush, just his hand dripping with a viscous liquid.

  Anaiya waits for the synthetic smell of paint to reach her, but instead the air spikes with a rich, metallic scent. A familiar organic scent. The scent of blood.

  Her gasp ricochets in the cold air around her. Seth spins, his defiant frame illuminated in the same blinding light as the recycler. Briefly, she sees his eyes widen, but all she can see is his ravaged body. Long slashes criss-cross his pale T-shirt, revealing deep gashes that stain the cottonex a deep red.

  The pattern reverberates with the red lines that mar the air recycler behind him, metre-high letters that do not yet spell the forbidden word in its entirety.

  RESIST

  “Anaiya…” His voice is a whisper, a scream, a raging torrent, a soft caress.

  RESIST

  “Anaiya…” Soft, deadly, soothing, home.

  RESIST

  “Anaiya.”

  * * *

  SHOCK, like icy water, rips her out of the simulation and into reality. She opens her mouth to scream, but her throat fails her and she is confronted only with the silence. A trembling makes its way from her limbs to her core and a weight envelopes her, sending her crashing to the floor.

  * * *

  ANAIYA WAKES AN HOUR LATER, back in her room. This time there is no comforting blackness, no shameful tears. Just the weight of her failure. It holds her down, sticks in her throat, a cloying sweetness, like something good gone bad.

  She throws off the sheets, strips to nakedness and strides to the bathroom. The water is cold, almost painful. She turns the tap to its furthest point, begging for a water pressure that will hail down on her skin and erase all other feeling. Her breath comes short and ragged, sharp on the inhale, fast on the exhale.

  She pinches the skin at her thighs when the feelings threaten to re-emerge, fingernails digging into flesh to produce bloody crescents, the bright red mixing with the water and dribbling down her leg.

  She meticulously counts each mosaic tile in the shower, and when the counting becomes predictable and opens up a gap for other thoughts to bubble through, she makes it harder – adding the number in the first two rows, subtracting the next row, multiplying the next row.

&n
bsp; She catalogues the various tints of tile, tapping once the bright white, tapping twice the flawed. Anything to occupy her mind with meaningless thoughts and pain.

  She loses track of time. Refuses to look at her wristplate. Her world is contained to the tiled shower stall, the water and the pain.

  Eventually, her mind empties and she turns off the water. Sedated, she lets herself slide to the cold floor, bringing her knees up to her chest and burying her head in her arms.

  Niamh finds her an hour later, naked, shivering, the purple hints of bruises marring the skin at her thighs. She offers no resistance as he wraps her in a towel, picks her up and returns her to the bed.

  Seeing Niamh returns Anaiya’s ability to feel. She grabs at the thin sheets, seeking warmth they cannot provide. Her teeth chatter, a violent sequence of hard clicks as they grind and collide against each other. Her fingers shake, despite being clenched tightly and gripping the sheets.

  Niamh shrugs out of his hoodie and wraps it around her shoulders, holding it there until her shaking softens and her teeth quieten. “Drowning your sorrows, Ani?”

  It is a poor attempt at a joke. Fire Elementals are so bad at humour. Her trembling lips offer a faint smile. It fades quickly when she realises that Niamh comforting her is a bad sign. A very bad sign.

  “How bad is it?” she asks, gripping the sheets and hoodie tighter.

  He sighs. “It’s not good.”

  “As in…?”

  He shakes his head. “You failed, Ani. The realignment…it failed.”

  It is not a surprise to hear the words, but they strike her like a one-inch punch anyway. The sensation is physical, a crushing pain that steals oxygen from her solar plexus.

  The reality of the situation clashes with the impossibility. Fire was her true alignment. Her realignment had been scientifically manipulated. Return to Fire should have been easy, inevitable.

  This is unnatural.

  Her breathing comes in quick, shallow bursts.

  This is…Heterodox.

  The word sends off a chain reaction of more and more dangerous thoughts in her mind. She thinks of Kane 148. She thinks of Rehhd. She thinks of Executioners with termination serum. She thinks of sharp, fine needles.

  “When?” she asks, her voice a harsh whisper along her dry throat.

  “When what?”

  “When will they come to detain me?”

  Niamh sighs and closes his eyes. “They aren’t coming for you, Ani,” he murmurs.

  Anaiya’s mind frantically races to understand his meaning. Not coming for me, now? Not coming for me, yet? Or is it you, Niamh, who will detain me?

  “Are you…?”

  He shakes his head again in answer. “No, Ani. No one is coming to detain you. Not now. Not ever.”

  Reality and impossibility intertwine.

  “The Cooperative doesn’t know about you,” he continues. “The Head Peacekeeper, the Commissioners, they don’t know about this…this experiment. They never have.”

  In a hushed tone, he tells her everything. That there have only ever been a handful of Elementals that have known about the realignment. That the Sec Level 5 briefings, the tests and simulations, the deployment – they have all been undertaken outside the formal structures, outside standard protocol.

  “It was an unauthorised op, Ani,” he finishes. “No one has ever known about it. No one ever can.”

  The scope of Niamh’s ambition, the ease with which he bends the Orthodoxy to take what he desires most, is breathtaking. Yes, she had seen glimpses of it before – the casual disregard for standard protocol when it suited his purposes – but this, this is too much, too far.

  “So, what happens now?” she asks, afraid of the question as much as the answer.

  He turns to look at her, determination shining in his eyes. “We see how well you can pretend.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  THE WALK to the Trocadero is a lonely one. Niamh had offered to accompany Anaiya, but the thought of free-running made her uneasy. The kevlar of her Peacekeeper uniform scratches, the full official attire heavy and unforgiving. Anaiya’s first chance to pretend has come much sooner than she hoped.

  She sticks to the back streets, avoiding the boulevardes that will soon swell with all kinds of Elementals – each making their way to the Execution site, spurred on by obligation, outrage, intrigue or morbid curiosity.

  But, here in the back streets, she can hide from the reality that awaits her at the end of her journey – can exert some control over the rising panic.

  This isn’t how it is supposed to be.

  She was supposed to have detained Rehhd on a quiet street like this one, with no witnesses but her backup Peacekeepers. The guilt and fear and regret were supposed to have been erased by her realignment back to Fire. She was supposed to have attended Rehhd’s Execution as an exalted and vindicated Peacekeeper. Not as an emotionally overwhelmed Heterodox Elemental.

  Anaiya stops walking. Crouching down into a low squat she pulls her head into her hands and suffocates the anguished wail that can no longer be contained. Hot tears prick her eyes and wet her palms.

  She was supposed to have shed Kane 148’s legacy. Instead she finds herself living it.

  * * *

  ARRIVING at the Trocadero is like slipping back in time.

  She approaches it from the north; the riverside avenue is already congested with the pilgrimage of Elementals. They move in a steady stream from the south, east and west, converging where the Yena Bridge bleeds into the Trocadero Gardens.

  Gardens.

  It is an ancient word. A redundant word. The last trees disappeared from the Otpor landscape generations before Anaiya’s conception. Maybe once the massive Lower Terrace accommodated trees and organic things, but now it offers only hard stone and no shade.

  Nine years ago she was down there, watching from the crowd as Kane was led to the Execution Pillar. Tonight, she will watch from the elevated courtyard, with nothing but empty space and cold marble between her and Rehhd.

  He looked smaller, almost frail, when they led him to the pillar. The cold stone had stripped him of the invincibility that had once seemed a second skin. The harsh lights painting him as a shadow…an empty shell.

  “Access authorisation.” A bulky Security Official holds out his mobile access terminal, barring Anaiya’s path to the courtyard, where she can see a handful of senior Fire and Water Elementals gathering. She waves her wristplate over the device, watching as the diode flashes green. The Security Official steps aside, allowing Anaiya access. She pauses. Niamh’s words repeat in her thoughts.

  We see how well you can pretend.

  As if the words call silently to him, Niamh appears in her view. He’s standing with the Head Peacekeeper and Fire Commissioner, and she doesn’t need to hear him to know he is angling for another promotion. She hovers where she is, unable to join Niamh, unwilling to go to Jenna and the small cadre of Peacekeepers who have taken up position near the eastern colonnade.

  The afternoon light is fading, the last bursts of burnished light catching on the smooth faces of the Execution Pillar. Anaiya’s heart tightens, anxiety spearing her core and flashing pain behind her eyes.

  Keep it together, Anaiya.

  The urgency of the command burns bright in her mind, but the sense of wrongness is suffocating.

  In less than an hour, Rehhd will be led to the pillar. The life will drain out of her as the toxins flood in. Her vitality will wink out, just like Kane’s did. She will cease to exist.

  But the Heterodoxy will continue.

  Because Rehhd isn’t leading the Resistance.

  Seth is.

  His name is a circuit breaker – her brain shuts down, unable to progress the thought trajectory. She knows he will be in the crowd tonight, watching Rehhd, watching her. The thought of seeing him again terrifies her.

  She walks hesitantly towards the edge of the courtyard, keeping to the shadows created by the western colonnade. The mood in the crow
d below has started to shift. Boisterous shouting and chaotic frivolity is giving way to a growing solemnity. A heavy weight.

  The Peacekeepers scattered in the crowd have become more alert. They move with purpose now – scanning the crowd regularly, striding without pause. Up on the Trocadero courtyard with Anaiya, the small Peacekeeper contingent has also become aware of the growing weight. Conversations have stopped and all eyes are directed out over the Lower Terrace.

  The Fire Commissioner nods at Niamh before resuming her conversation with the Head Peacekeeper. Niamh makes his way across the courtyard to where the Water Elementals are stationed. He moves past the Technicians, heading directly for the senior Water official.

  Anaiya moves closer.

  Their discussion is immediately heated. Their muffled voices reach Anaiya as a low-pitched hum.

  She moves closer still.

  “This is not protocol,” the Water official says.

  “It is necessary,” Niamh counters.

  The official shakes his head, clearly not convinced.

  “The Fire Commissioner has authorised it,” Niamh says.

  “The Fire Commissioner has no authority over the Water Element.”

  Niamh is shaking his head, his hands clenching by his side. “If we don’t move the Execution forwards, we face a mass disobedience.” His voice is strained.

  The Water official is silent.

  “Look.” He flings his hand out towards the Lower Terrace and the amassed crowd. “Look at them. Listen to them. This is not a gathering of compliant Elementals. This is not a gathering of Orthodox Elementals craving the destruction of a Heterodox Elemental.”

  The Water official peers out into the crowd, a frown beginning to crease his forehead.

  “This is a crowd on the edge,” Niamh continues. “An overdose needing a receptor antagonist.”

  Anaiya rolls her eyes at the crude Water analogy, but hears the reason in his words. It is a crowd on edge – the weight is threatening to spill into real violence.

  Eventually, the Water official nods.