The Six Elemental

by Ali House

  Kit just stared at him. She had no idea what he was getting at.

  “We need your help,” Triton said, closing the folder.

  “With what?”

  “With avoiding a war.”

  “But how can I help you do that?”

  He paused. “I’m not supposed to go into too much detail until you agree, but I believe I can trust you not to speak of this to anyone else. There are rumors that Tecken has moved a group of soldiers onto Stanton and that these soldiers are hiding amongst us. So far we’ve been unable to validate these rumors, but if we can we’ll finally have proof that Tecken is plotting another attack. Once we go to the Centre with that proof, they can impose restrictions and we can finally get a foothold on Tecken.”

  “And what would I have to do?”

  “We need people that Tecken won’t suspect, who can move around the city without being noticed. If Tecken has managed to get soldiers on this island, then it would mean that our security’s been breached. We have to assume that our employees have been compromised.”

  Kit didn’t know how to respond. The ISS needed civilians to look for Tecken soldiers and they were asking her? Despite Triton’s rational, she wondered if it was a good idea. Civilians weren’t trained in espionage. How would they know what to do?

  She took a breath to steady herself. It was a lot to take in. “So, I’d just have to give you proof that Tecken has soldiers on the island?”

  He nodded.

  “And I’d do this all on my own?”

  “There are others that are being interviewed. You’ll only meet them if you agree to help.”

  “Do you expect it to be dangerous?” she asked. If he’d brought up her kick-boxing and self-defense classes, then he had to be expecting some kind of risk.

  “We’d prefer that you keep a low profile and avoid contact with any suspects, but it’s a possibility. We need to make sure that you’re prepared for every eventuality.”

  “And how long do you think this would take?”

  “We’re not sure. It could be weeks or months. We might have to abandon the project if nothing is discovered. We don’t expect you to give up your job, so it would have to be a spare-time project. We would compensate you for the time spent working for us, but you wouldn’t really be working for us, of course.” He stood up and walked to the front of his desk, leaning against it casually. “If you don’t think you can do this, it’s okay. You can walk out of here and go back to your normal life. As long as you swear not to tell anyone about this conversation.”

  “Wait,” she said and went quiet again. It sounded harmless enough, but she knew that it would be dangerous. Spying on Tecken, trying to uncover secret soldiers and avoid a war, all while working full time? It was a lot to ask of anyone. Would she be able to handle all the secrecy? What if she said the wrong thing and ruined the entire operation? Maybe she should decline and let someone better suited handle it.

  But when would she get a chance like this ever again? She could help the island – the whole Segment, in fact. Triton was asking her – normal, Electricity-only her – to help out. If she could do this, then it would prove that she was able to do some good in the world. Maybe then she would be able to admit to herself...

  “Okay,” she said finally. “I’m in.”

  Four days passed before she heard from Triton again, which was just long enough for her to start questioning whether or not their meeting had really happened. For all she knew, it could have been a dream or a hallucination, or a delusion of grandeur.

  When Triton called, it was to let her know that he had scheduled a meeting in the ISS building for the members of the civilian team on Saturday, so that they could get to know each other and learn what was expected of them. Information about the team was on a need-to-know basis, which meant that most of the ISS workers wouldn’t know about them. In order to keep the meeting secret, each person had a different arrival time and would take a different path to get to the meeting room.

  When Kit woke up on the day of the meeting she felt excited, nervous, and nauseous. She’d never done anything like this. Triton had given her specific instructions on what to do when she entered the ISS building, and it was straight out of a spy novel. She was to walk through the lobby, to the end of the hallway, and take the stairs to the second floor. On the second floor she would walk through the cafeteria to the east side of the building, and over to the east staircase. Then she would go to the fourth floor and into the first room on the left. There she would wait until everyone else had arrived, after which the meeting would start.

  When she entered the ISS building, she tried to act as normal as possible while following Triton’s instructions. The door to the room on the fourth floor was closed but it wasn’t locked, and when she walked inside there were already three people sitting around a large oval table. They’d been talking, but stopped when she entered the room.

  Two of them were sitting together, and she did a double take because they looked so alike. They both had short black hair and green eyes, and were dressed alike in dark blue shirts and black pants. They were obviously twins, but Kit had never seen twins look so similar. The third person she recognized as the red-haired man she’d seen at the museum opening.

  “Welcome,” the female twin said. “We thought about doing introductions, but figured that we might as well wait for everyone else to get here. It would get annoying to introduce ourselves twenty times.”

  “Fair enough.” Kit replied nervously. She sat down in the closest seat, which was near the twins. She would have liked to sit next to the red-haired man but she didn’t want to seem obvious.

  “We got here ten minutes ago,” she continued, gesturing to her brother. “And Red’s been here for five.”

  “Do you know how long we have left?”

  She shrugged. “Kolsovar never gave us a number. And before you ask, we haven’t seen him yet. When the two of us got here the room was empty, so we just talked until he came in,” she gestured to the red-haired man. “I hope we’re not going to have five minutes between each arrival, because depending on how many people are in this group we could be here all day. And, just so you know, that’s a two-way mirror, so there’s probably someone watching us right now.”

  Kit looked at the large mirror hanging behind the twins. “How can you tell?” she asked.

  “If you bypass the obvious fact that they’d be idiots to put us in a room all alone without any supervision, you can tell by the way it’s set. Instead of being on the wall, it’s built into the wall. The frame tries to disguise that, but not well enough. It’s also too big for a normal mirror. This could easily fit three people behind it without disrupting sight lines.”

  “And if you look at it from an aesthetic standpoint,” the red-haired man said, “you shouldn’t put a rectangular mirror in a room where the main attraction is an oval table.”

  Kit smiled. “Are you an interior decorator?”

  “No, just a photographer.”

  She wanted to ask him about his photos, but the door opened and they all turned their attention to it. A young woman entered the room, giving a large smile to everyone. She had bright yellow eyes and light purple hair that hung past her shoulders in waves. Her skirt hung low enough on her hips that the white mark of Ice was visible to the left of her bellybutton. She looked dressed for a day at the mall, not a secret meeting.

  “Hi everyone,” she said, taking a seat next to the red-haired man. “I’m Bryanna.”

  The female twin let out a loud sigh. Her brother elbowed her in the side.

  Bryanna laughed. “Did I do something wrong already?”

  “We were saving the introductions until the last person showed up,” the male twin said.

  “We might as well get on with it now,” the female twin muttered. “I’m Zenyth.”

  “Naydir,” her brother said.

  “Vaughn.”

  “Kit.”

  “Well, that wasn’t so hard,” Bryanna teased.
>
  Zenyth frowned, but before she could say anything, Naydir spoke. “Do you know if you’re the last?” he asked.

  Bryanna shrugged. “I guess we just have to wait and see. So, what are you all talking about?”

  “The two-way mirror behind us.”

  Bryanna looked at the mirror. “No way. That’s a two-way mirror? How can you tell?”

  Kit had to hold back a laugh. The look on Zenyth’s face said how little she wanted to answer that question again. Kit hoped that everyone would soon be here. If Zenyth had to keep repeating herself, she’d probably explode with impatience.

  “There should be at least one more person,” Vaughn said, changing the subject. “A team of five is an odd number, unless one of us is the appointed leader.”

  Everyone looked around, but nobody spoke up.

  Vaughn continued. “Even numbers mean that you can have two people work together at a time, so we’ve either got one more person or three more.”

  “I’d say one,” Zenyth said. “Six is a nice small number. If they didn’t stop at four, I say six.”

  Naydir looked at Kit. “What element are you?”

  “Electricity,” Kit replied.

  He turned to Vaughn. “And you?”

  “Fire.”

  “Well I’m Earth, Zenyth is Air, and Bryanna’s obviously Ice.”

  Kit suddenly caught on. “Six people, six elements. The next person’s going to be Water.”

  They all looked at the door, but it remained closed.

  “How long has it been since Bryanna came in?” Zenyth asked.

  Naydir checked his watch. “Six minutes.”

  “Then it should be soon.”

  Nobody said anything as they waited for the door to open. After a few minutes, Kit wondered if this was a test. What if there was no sixth person? What if they’d gotten it wrong? Would Triton make them wait indefinitely?

  Five minutes later, the door opened and a young man walked into the room. He obviously wasn’t with the ISS – one look at his clothes said that. His jeans were ripped and stained, and his shirt looked like it hadn’t been washed in years. His brown hair was long enough for that messy I-never-do-anything-with-my-hair look, except for him it probably wasn’t a look.

  “Sorry about being late, but there were so many instructions,” he said, falling into the chair nearest Bryanna. He winked one of his violet eyes at her. “How are you doing?”

  Bryanna smiled and rolled her eyes playfully.

  “That makes six,” Naydir said. “Should we start with the introductions?”

  “Am I the last one?”

  “Unless everyone else is as late as you are, I’d say yes,” Zenyth replied pointedly.

  He shrugged. “They might be.”

  She ignored him. “I’m Zenyth Hansen, 24, Air.”

  “Naydir Hansen, 24, Earth.”

  “Vaughn Anderson, 22, Fire.”

  “Kit Tyler, 21, Electricity.”

  “Bryanna Kavail, 23, Ice.”

  “Cale Parrile, 22, Water.” He paused. “Hey, we’ve got one of each element.”

  “We know that,” Bryanna replied, her voice impatient with a hint of flirtation. “That’s why we’re assuming you’re last.”

  The door opened and everyone turned.

  “Hello,” Triton greeted them as he entered the room. “Thank you for coming in today. I apologize for the wait, but we had to make sure that everyone made it here safely. And, just so you know, you’re right about almost everything. The fact that you each have different elements was actually a coincidence, but there are six of you on the team, that is a two-way mirror, and there were three of us standing behind it. The other two men you don’t need to meet, but they’ll be keeping an eye on you to make sure you’re all safe.”

  He sat down between Cale and Kit, placing the files he’d brought in on the table. “I’m glad that you’ve gotten the introductions out of the way. I’ve got a lot of business to go through, so we’ll leave the rest of the ‘getting to know each other’ stuff until later. You all know why you’re here and what we’re asking you to do. This is a matter that requires discretion and safety. You can’t just wander around the island asking if anyone’s seen a Tecken soldier. If you start to draw attention to yourself, we may remove you from this team. If you draw too much attention, then you might have to be removed from the island altogether. We have a list of possible bases, but the ISS can’t get near them without raising alarm. If Tecken gets spooked and pulls their team back, we’ll lose our chance to get the Council involved.”

  “How do you know that Tecken’s even on the island?” Vaughn asked.

  “We can’t reveal our source, but we’re certain that there’s a team of soldiers currently hidden in Stanton. Tecken couldn’t have achieved this without the help of someone inside the ISS, which is why we need you. Only five people know about you: myself, Frederick, the two men behind the glass and Dominika Haskell. It was Dominika’s suggestion that we pull this team together. She’s very eager to get this matter taken care of.”

  Kit recognized the name from current affairs. Dominika Haskell was the representative for Segment Delta on the Council of Twelve. It must not be a very easy job to be responsible for the only Segment to have a war in over 700 years.

  “That’s why you should use discretion at all times. If Tecken finds out that you’re helping us, we can’t guarantee your safety. If you don’t think that you can get proof without jeopardizing yourself, come to us and we’ll see what we can do; but you’d better be positive about your proof because if we move in and it turns out to be a waste of time, we’ll lose our only advantage.” Triton adjusted his glasses and opened the top file. “There is one more thing that might come as a bit of a surprise, but it’s for the best. We want you to all move in together.”

  “Why?” Zenyth said.

  “It will be easier for us to get information to all of you if you live in one location. We won’t have to be making multiple phone calls to track you down, and you won’t have to set up meetings to relay information. It will also give you a reason for associating with each other, as most of you had never met before today.”

  “Fair enough,” Vaughn said.

  “So where are you going to put us?” Cale asked.

  Triton pushed the file to the centre of the table. Kit could see photographs of the exterior and interior of a large house.

  “There’s a house on 10th Street that was abandoned during the First Invasion, and is now owned by one of our sub-sects. There are other houses on that street that have multiple tenants, so it won’t be suspicious to have you all in there. It even has six bedrooms – four on the top floor and two in the basement.”

  “I’m not sleeping in the basement,” Zenyth said immediately.

  “I’ll take the basement,” Bryanna offered. “I work nights, so I’d prefer a darker room.”

  “The basement sounds like fun,” Cale said, looking at Bryanna and raising an eyebrow suggestively.

  Bryanna rolled her eyes again, but the smile never left her face.

  “We’d like you all to move in within the next two weeks. It’s rent free, so if you choose to keep your current apartments, you can do so. If you choose to give up your current living situation, then once this is all over, we’ll let you stay there as long as it takes for you to find a new place.” Triton opened another file and took out six small envelopes. He passed an envelope to each person. “Here are your keys to the house. I think it’s fair to say that at this point there is no backing out. I hope you all get along, because depending on how long this takes, you could be together for quite a while.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The game was Bryanna’s idea.

  Everyone had moved into the house within two weeks of their meeting, as Triton had requested. Most of them had to take the full two weeks to orchestrate the move, except for Zenyth and Naydir, who were the first to move. Kit wondered if it was so Zenyth could lay claim on the house and decide what
went where. Despite knowing the woman for less than two hours, Kit had a feeling that Zenyth liked to be in charge and didn’t like to be challenged. Sure enough, when Kit arrived at the house the day of the move she was informed by Zenyth which room would be hers and where to put her extra furniture. Kit considered disagreeing, but she wanted to get along with everyone so she held back her opinions.

  Even though she’d seen the pictures, Kit was still surprised by how large the house was. There were three floors, with staircases in the centre. The main floor had the front porch, the living room, kitchen, dining room, back porch, bathroom, and study. The basement held Bryanna and Cale’s rooms, a bathroom, laundry room, and storage space. Upstairs were the rooms for Zenyth, Naydir, Vaughn and her, and two more bathrooms. Kit silently applauded the person who decided to put four bathrooms in the house.

  Her room was to the left of the top of the stairs and next to Vaughn’s, who was in the corner. Naydir’s room was to the right of Vaughn’s, with Zenyth’s room down from that. Zenyth had claimed the main bedroom, which was the biggest room and had both a walk-in closet and private bathroom. It was a bit unfair, but the other bedrooms were large enough that nobody complained.

  With Vaughn, Cale, Bryanna, and her moving in at the same time, the day was more than a little hectic. There were trucks coming and going, and frequently blocking the driveway. There were fights over what furniture should go where – mostly between Zenyth and Bryanna. There was flirting with the movers – mostly Bryanna. There were jealous glances – mostly Cale. There were more boxes than any one person should ever see, unless that person worked in a box factory with a high daily quota.

  When the dust settled and everyone was in their own room, unpacking, Naydir decided that it was time for pizza and beer.

  “Are you in?” he asked, leaning in Kit’s doorway.

  Kit looked at her watch. It was seven o’clock and she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. “I’m definitely in.”