The Six Elemental

by Ali House

  “There’s a chance that person might have been with Tecken,” Naydir said, bringing the conversation back.

  “Nope.” Bryanna shook her head vehemently. “Totally a Follower of Six.”

  “I’ll tell Triton to look into her anyway.”

  They talked a bit more about the lecture before finally exhausting the subject.

  As Kit walked up to her room, she thought about Cale’s pretend fighting. The others assumed that if a Six-Elemental were to exist that it would have amazing powers. But they were wrong. There was nothing amazing about having six weak powers. If anything, it made her more of a liability than a neutral Elemental because people would expect so much of her. Heck, a well-trained Air Elemental could do much more damage than she ever could.

  And then there were the Followers of Six. They were a smaller religion and relatively easy to ignore. They had no proof that a Six-Elemental could exist, other than a 700-year-old fairy tale, but they believed so strongly that they able to overlook the science against them. If they found out that they were right, that there was a Six-Elemental walking around with them... Kit didn’t want to think about what would happen. Being a superhero was hard enough, but being a God was completely out of the question.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “We’ve had a breakthrough!” Zenyth’s jubilant voice rang throughout the house. “Everyone get in here quick!”

  Kit was in the middle of washing dishes, but she immediately stopped what she was doing and hurried to the living room. On her way she almost bumped into Vaughn, who was coming down the stairs.

  Zenyth and Naydir were standing in the room, dressed in their uniforms. Naydir was relatively calm, but Zenyth was practically shaking with energy. As Kit and Vaughn took a seat, Bryanna and Cale emerged from the basement.

  “Get on with it,” Cale said as he walked to the couch and sat down. “Team’s all here.”

  “This is the best day ever!” Zenyth announced triumphantly. “I just found a Tecken soldier!”

  Everyone but Naydir looked confused.

  “What?” Cale burst out.

  “How?” Vaughn demanded.

  “When?” Kit asked.

  “Seriously!?” Bryanna exclaimed.

  “A possible Tecken soldier,” Naydir added.

  “A very possible Tecken soldier.” Zenyth was grinning from ear to ear. “So the other day, Naydir and I were keeping an eye on building three, the apartment building,” Zenyth began. “Nothing particularly interesting was happening, but then I saw something. There was a guy walking down the street with his arm around a girl. Normally I wouldn’t care, but he was acting like a big shot so he caught my attention. Then, as he passed by us, he gestured with his arm and his shirt moved up and I noticed that he had something tucked into his pants. Something that resembled a gun.”

  The room was silent. It had been years since the last gun possession charge.

  “Naydir didn’t see it, but I definitely did. I wanted to go after him right then and there, but Naydir said it was too dangerous.”

  “We didn’t have our badges or tazers,” Naydir explained. “To go running after a potentially armed suspect in the middle of downtown Stanton is craz–”

  “The point is that I listened to him,” she interrupted. “I took down a detailed description and reported the guy to headquarters straight away.”

  Everyone in the room knew the policy regarding guns. After the Last World War the majority of projectile weapons were outlawed, and every gun was destroyed. This didn’t stop people from trying to make guns, so new laws had to be made. Every now and then someone would be seen with an illegal weapon and arrested by the police. Judgment was swift and consisted of arresting the person and then shooting them in the head with their own weapon. Afterward the weapon would be destroyed. The punishment was enough to keep the majority of people away from the crime, but every few years someone who thought that they could avoid the law surfaced.

  “So today Naydir and I were called into Triton’s office to ID the suspect,” she continued. “Triton goes through about twenty photos that sort-of match the description and the sketch he was given. The thing is, none of them resemble that guy. He’s not in the ISS database.”

  “So?” Cale said.

  “So Triton thinks that this guy might be one of the Tecken soldiers. If he is then he obviously won’t show up in any system since he was born after the First Invasion. Tecken stopped sharing their database with the ISS after the bridges were blown up.”

  “You found a Tecken soldier?” Kit said. “That’s amazing.”

  “We’re not entirely sure that he is with Tecken,” Naydir replied. “He could have come over here from another Segment and is avoiding registering for some reason.” Zenyth glared at him. “But it is possible that he could be a Tecken soldier,” he allowed.

  Zenyth smiled. “Vaughn, you and your camera are going downtown with me.”

  “Right now?” he asked.

  “The sooner the better. I need you to take a picture of him so that we can have an official photo for the ISS and for us. We all need to know what he looks like so that we can follow him and report where he goes and who he speaks to.”

  “But how are you going to find him?” Cale asked.

  “I saw him once, so I’m sure I’ll see him again.”

  “Stubborn determination. That always works.”

  “I didn’t say that it was a perfect plan,” she shot back, “but it’s better than anything else we’ve got.”

  It took Zenyth and Vaughn three tries before they found the suspect. Searching for one particular person in Stanton was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Vaughn took a few pictures of the area and managed to get a couple good shots of the guy. He was tall, and in good shape with blonde hair and red eyes. He was with a girl again – a different one from last time. Zenyth wanted to continue following him, but the trail went cold when he disappeared into a private club.

  Once Vaughn developed the pictures, Zenyth called another emergency meeting so that he could pass them around to the rest of the team.

  “He’s cute,” Bryanna said.

  Kit smiled. Of course Bryanna would notice that.

  “He’s the enemy,” Zenyth replied.

  “Alleged enemy.”

  “Even if he’s not from Tecken, he has a dangerous weapon.”

  Bryanna laughed. “Oh, yeah he does.”

  “I’m serious, Bryanna!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Now that I know what he looks like, am I allowed to join the search? I’ve got the evening off.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Cale volunteered.

  Zenyth frowned. “Fine, go. Just remember that you’re only supposed to watch him.”

  “I know,” Bryanna said, standing up. “Cale, let’s go.”

  Cale obediently followed Bryanna out the door.

  “Idiot...” Zenyth muttered, walking out of the room.

  “Zenyth’s just stressed,” Naydir explained before following his sister.

  “She’s always stressed,” Kit said to nobody in particular.

  Vaughn laughed, startling her.

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I promise not to tell her.”

  “Thank you,” she smiled at him gratefully. “I really enjoy being alive.”

  “Well, I think I’ll go take some photos for fun,” he said, standing up. “It’s difficult to relax with someone standing over your shoulder, insisting that you get a specific angle or shot. See you later.”

  “See you,” she replied.

  She had no plans for the night so she decided to distract herself by seeing if there were any chores that needed to be done. Housework helped her to feel useful – especially since there were a few people in the house who didn’t exactly go out of their way to clean up. She put in a load of laundry and filled the sink up to do a load of dishes. She should have offered to
go out with Bryanna, but Cale was faster.

  When she was finished with the dishes, she wiped down the table and the counters. It was a futile effort, as there would be crumbs or spilled tea again in a few hours, but at least she could say that she tried. After wringing out the cloth, she noticed that the water in the sink was cold. Kit looked around the room to make sure she was alone before putting her hand in the water and thinking about the heat of fire. The water started to warm up, but she thought she heard someone coming down the stairs and quickly stopped what she was doing.

  It was only paranoia – there was nobody else around. Kit let the water out of the sink and tried not to think about how terrible it would be if she was caught.

  After the dishes were done, she put her clothes in the dryer and then settled in the living room. She was watching a documentary about the Tecken Invasion when Cale burst through the front door. He slammed the door shut with so much force that Kit felt the walls shake.

  “I’m going to kill her!” he shouted.

  Kit muted the television. “Where’s Bryanna?”

  “I’m going to kill her!”

  Zenyth raced down the stairs, with Naydir following close behind.

  “What happened?” Naydir asked.

  Cale paced around the living room, muttering to himself.

  “What happened?” Naydir repeated in a calm voice, keeping a careful distance away from Cale.

  “That... That stupid...” Cale stopped and fumed for a few seconds. “We got real lucky and we found that guy when we went downtown. He was walking down the street, alone. We were following him when Bryanna said that she wanted to split up. I didn’t think anything of it until...”

  Zenyth sighed. “Don’t tell me...”

  “She went right up to him, introduced herself, and then they walked off – with his arm around her waist! I trailed them for as long as I could, but then they went down an alley and through a door at the back. It was a private club and there was some guy manning the door, so I couldn’t follow them. I waited for an hour, but she didn’t come out.”

  “If she gets herself killed...” Zenyth clenched her fists. “I will raise her from the dead and kill her again.”

  “She really shouldn’t have done that,” Naydir muttered under his breath.

  “How long has it been since she went in?” Kit asked.

  “Ninety minutes.”

  “She could still be in there. Bryanna’s used to being out until four in the morning, so this is early for her.”

  Cale fumed. “She’d better not be out until four am.”

  “I’m just saying that maybe we should wait before we start calling the missing persons department.”

  Cale and Zenyth both rolled their eyes, but neither verbally disagreed with her. Cale started pacing again, while Zenyth sank into the couch with her arms crossed over her chest. Naydir sat next to her, his posture tense.

  The room was silent except for Cale’s muttering and swearing. Kit wanted to say something to fill up the silence, but she had a feeling that no matter what she said she’d be wrong. Instead she settled for turning up the volume of the documentary. She waited for someone to say something, but nobody did. Naydir started watching the television, while Zenyth glared at the wall and Cale continued to pace.

  Kit hoped that Bryanna wouldn’t be out too late. The instructions from Triton were to watch the suspect from a distance; so approaching him was quite reckless. Kit doubted that she’d have the guts to approach a Tecken soldier, especially one that might own a gun. Was Bryanna trying to prove something? Did she think that she’d be able to prove that this guy was actually from Tecken on her own?

  They were an hour into a documentary about the farmlands in Aesira, which nobody was really paying attention to, when Bryanna finally came home.

  She looked up at the faces staring at her from the living room. “If I’d known that there was going to be a reception waiting for me, I’d have dressed differently,” she remarked with a smile.

  “Are you a complete idiot?” Zenyth growled at her through clenched teeth. “You run off with a suspect and then come home making light of everything!”

  Bryanna’s smile fell away. “Hey, I was being pro-active.”

  “You could have been killed,” Cale said angrily.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “He has a gun!” Zenyth remarked.

  “Oh, about that,” a smirk came and went from Bryanna’s face, “he doesn’t. I checked.”

  “I saw a gun.”

  “Well he didn’t have it on him tonight – if he has one at all.”

  Zenyth gave Bryanna a dark look, before standing up and leaving the room. Cale looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead he turned and headed to the basement. Once they were gone, Naydir spoke up.

  “So, Bry, did you find out anything?”

  Bryanna was taken aback by Naydir’s neutral tone. “Well, he took me to this club that seems like a place Tecken sympathizers hang out. I don’t think any of us would be able to get in there, since you need a password and the guy at the door has to recognize you.”

  “Could you go back?”

  She shook her head. “I told Nathan that I was visiting from Briton. No offense, Kit, but it’s the easiest way to complain about Humanists. Oh, and his name’s Nathan. I didn’t get his last name.”

  “What if he sees you around town?” Naydir asked. “Won’t that ruin your story?”

  “I never noticed him before this whole thing started, so I doubt that we’ll run into each other again. Besides, I’ll just say I’m visiting again or that I finally decided to move here or something.”

  “So is he a Tecken soldier?” Kit asked.

  Bryanna sighed. “I don’t know. He sure talks a lot about politics, but we also talked about other stuff. He’s at least a sympathizer. He really believes that there are problems with this Segment that need to be fixed.”

  Naydir paused. “If he sympathizes with Tecken and he doesn’t show up on the ISS’s database, then we have more than enough reason to be suspicious. I’ll let Triton know that we have a first name.” He stood up and headed for the stairs, but before leaving the room he stopped. “Bryanna, I have to say that what you did was incredibly risky, and went directly against Triton’s orders to go unnoticed. But other than that, good job.”

  Bryanna smiled as he walked away. “He’s totally my favorite twin.”

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Kit said.

  “Why not?”

  “I mean, you went up to someone that might be from Tecken.”

  Bryanna shrugged and fell into a chair. “I just think that instead of trying to be all secret and stealthy we could do more. So I did more.” She smiled and winked.

  Kit opened her mouth and then closed it. She thought back to Bryanna’s remark about how Nathan definitely wasn’t carrying a gun. “Wait, did you... With him?”

  “Don’t look so shocked,” Bryanna said. “You know, you’re quite the prude.”

  “I’m not! I just... He’s the enemy!”

  “He’s a guy – a cute guy. Besides, I really wanted to prove Zenyth wrong about the gun, and most people let their guard down during certain activities.”

  Kit’s cheeks turned a bright red.

  Bryanna laughed. “It wouldn’t hurt you to loosen up a bit, Tyler.”

  It was another warm day in Stanton, which meant that Kit was wondering why she had decided to move to an island that was closer to the equator. Briton was a terrible place to live, but at least it was cooler. Most of the people downtown were wearing t-shirts and shorts, but Kit didn’t own shorts – she couldn’t even wear sandals because of the Water Tattoo on her ankle. On warm days like this, she would wish that she’d Denied so that she could dress more comfortably.

  Traffic hadn’t been bad, and it had taken her less time than estimated to get to the teashop after work. Vaughn was meeting her so that they could go looking for Nathan together, but he hadn’t arrived yet. Some
times he spent hours trying to line up a perfect shot, so he might just be distracted.

  Kit took a drink of her iced tea and wondered what would happen if she saw Nathan before Vaughn arrived. If she followed him on her own, she knew that Zenyth would be furious. Bryanna’s escapade last week was still a touchy subject around the house, and Kit didn’t want to give Zenyth a reason to be angry with her. But would it be worse than letting Nathan get away?

  Hopefully Vaughn would get here soon and she wouldn’t have to worry about that. Maybe she should have brought a book. If she had a book, then she’d have something to read instead of staring off into space, thinking about everything that could go wrong. Her mind was going to drive her crazy one day, always coming up with the worst-case scenario for every situation. It was one of the few things she’d inherited from her mother.

  She was trying to think happy thoughts when she noticed someone standing across from her.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  Her eyes widened, but at least she stopped her mouth from dropping open. Standing in front of her was a tall man with blonde hair and red eyes, exactly like the man from Vaughn’s pictures. Nathan.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to catch you off guard,” he said. He was wearing a fitted black t-shirt that emphasized his muscles and dark jeans.

  “No, I...” she paused. “It’s just, there are empty tables, so...”

  He nodded. “You’re wondering why I don’t want to sit alone. Well, aside from the obvious reason that no man would choose to sit alone when he has the chance to sit next to a beautiful woman...”

  She tried to cover her laughter with a cough. What a line.

  Nathan took her reaction as an invitation to sit down. “I also wanted to ask you something.”

  Her eyebrow rose quizzically.

  “See, I heard this story a few weeks ago about a blue-haired Electricity Elemental who punched a Humanist in the mall. You’ve got blue hair, I can see your Electricity Tattoo on your arm, and you look like the type of girl who hates ignorance, so I thought I’d ask.”

  Kit finally understood why he’d approached her. “Oh... Yeah, that was me.”