Elysium's Shadow

6.30pm, 9th April, ICY 418

Island Two, Elysium

Julie Martin breathed in, deeply, and savoured the moment. Blain had taken obvious pleasure in putting her in the smallest, most cramped cell his security compound possessed. He hadn't admitted to the gesture being intentional, of course - he'd not said a word to her since her arrest - but she'd had to endure his smug features gleefully watching her as necessary preparations were made to drag her from Island One over to Island Two. Her new home.

These two islands had been Julie's world for the past two years, but didn't form the whole of the Earth-sized planet called Elysium; it was a beautiful world, with a single vast continent they had nicknamed Pangaea dominating a full third of the planet's surface, and an innumerable series of smaller islands - a paltry two of which were colonised by humanity. None of the staff or prisoners ever left the safety of their two islands without heavily-armed guards, and only then to try and find anything that could be considered valuable on nearby islands. Elysium looked beautiful, but it was savage, and bristling with predators. Pangaea remained resolutely off-limits to the small band of human residents, and lasers kept the airborne predators far enough away for limited peace of mind.

Her mind was still reeling from all that had happened in just the last few hours, as she stepped down from the shuttle onto the warm dock. Now that she was seeing her new home through different eyes, those of a prisoner, she appreciated how secure it really was. Prisoners didn't even get the run of the entire island, despite the endless seas acting as a far more effective barrier than the wall in front of her ever could. The enormity of what she had done only now hit her.

I'll never see my best friend again.

Her lapse had taken everything away; her reputation, her job, her calling and her life. She had stood by and allowed the suppression field - an invisible field capable of pushing down elemental power - to be activated, reducing her abilities to the point of non-existence. Losing them hurt almost as much as losing her friend. In some ways, it hurt more. She would never admit that guilty secret to anyone, but her power had been with her since puberty had arrived thirty years ago, and she couldn't remember being anything else.

As the guards communicated with their fellows up in the guard tower, Julie savoured the momentary delay and looked around. While Island Two's dock was half the size of Island One's equivalent, it was nevertheless perfectly serviceable. All of the goods, equipment and personnel that were delivered to Elysium went first to Island One for processing and onward travel.

Prisoners were the one exception. They came directly here to the prison island, ensuring Island One was forever unsullied by their presence. Julie, of course, was the exception to that exception; the only member of staff, probably in the history of prison worlds, to move from the comfort and security of her staff quarters to the stark and severe world that the prisoners inhabited.

Elysium had been her home ever since the prison had first opened two years previous, and she'd hoped to stay here for a while longer - she was a rare breed; a graduate of the Merlin Institute, working for the Republic as part of a half-hearted programme to try and improve relations between the two sides - but had intended to move on eventually. Not now.

Out of her peripheral vision, she saw men step either side of her. She tensed; the security guards who had accompanied her on the flight were two of Blain's favourites. They were thuggish, only mildly intelligent and no lovers of the power they called magic. She could understand that; not many non-Institute people were. They didn't understand it - of course they didn't, otherwise why would they call it magic? That was for sleight-of-hand card tricks, far beneath the subtle art of elemental control she and her fellow Merlins performed; and the Institute called their power just that. But "elemental control" wasn't very catchy, and the term magic had stuck amongst the general population. The ability to manipulate the elements was a rare art; only a small number of people born with the power. Any human child could be born with the right sequence of activated genes, but scientists still - even after so much research - didn't know the exact sequence, so those born with elemental powers were entirely at the lap of the . Julie hesitated. She wouldn't use the word "gods".

Perhaps "fate" is a better choice of word.

She sighed; pedantry was the least of her worries right now. Human beings often feared what they did not understand, and when an evolutionary quirk had burst those powers out into point five percent of the population, hundreds of years before, the people with those powers had been often treated abysmally.

Sadly, things were still difficult between the Institute and the Republic more widely; humanity didn't understand the Institute, and the Institute members struggled to remember what it was like to live without power. A gulf of misunderstanding had split open between them over the years, and proved more difficult as time went on, as each side relied heavily on the other; the Republic needed the Institute for a more creative defence against some of their more unusual enemies, and the Institute needed the Emperors and Empresses to give them political cover to continue with their research and development without interference.

Things had gotten worse under Guinevere's leadership, of course, but no-one was surprised - she made her distrust of the Institute well-known. She had declared, back when she was heir to the Golden Throne, that she would keep the Institute at arm's length when she was in power, and she had apparently been true to her word; she and the Chief Warlock had barely spoken. Or that's what Julie had heard anyway. That did nothing except increase the tension between the two sides; T'was ever thus, Julie thought wearily.

Blain's choice of guards, therefore, had made her wonder if the chief of security might have hoped for something to happen to her in the transit time between islands. The guards - Walters and Smith, if she remembered correctly - had been incredibly well-behaved. They had watched her carefully and both had kept their right hands on their nightsticks. The suppression field had done its job well, but the guards obviously still believed that she had some kind of latent power being kept in reserve, to turn them (perhaps) into a frog or a small vase. Of course, she'd certainly thought about it. They would have deserved it.

I even know what to do with the excess matter. But I don't want to get into more trouble - and it's moot anyway with the bloody suppression field engaged. How very prescient of Mr Blain to have had one installed; I knew he didn't trust me.

Each guard grabbed one of her arms, making it clear to her that it was time to move. She bristled at their touch.

I won't be escorted there like some common criminal, she thought stubbornly. That's one thing I'm not. None of the inhabitants here are; I never believed that, even when I was on Island One. I never agreed with imprisoning people purely on the basis of their dissent from the accepted norms, especially when the dissent was peaceful and the norms are so violent.

She flushed, realising how loose she'd become with her thinking in such short a period of time. She had come into the Prisons Directorate to see what she could learn from people living in the system. She just hadn't expected to be amongst them quite so intimately.

But they're all intelligent, resourceful people. I'm no better; they fought against a corrupt system before they were caught, and I respect them. She managed to suppress a guilty smile. I actually quite like their radical approach.

She pulled her arms away from their firm grips and glared at each of them in turn; they both tensed, and Smith's hand twitched back towards his nightstick. He seemed to be fighting an urge to pull it out and use it anyway, just for the hell of it.

Walters, for his part, seemed unsure now that Julie had resisted their touch. Walters' indecision spread to Smith, and both men hesitated. They weren't to know that Julie was quite willing to move on; she had made her point. They clearly wanted direction, and she saw two sets of eyes glance back towards the shuttle to seek it.

Julie refused to look. She wouldn't give Blain the satisfaction. He hadn't yet deigned to leave the comfort of the shuttle, and she wondered if he even would; he was clearly driving home the point that he was important enough to keep any prisoner waiting - even an ex-colleague. Commander Robert Blain hardly ever left the safe confines of Island One; he had staff to sort out the actual prisoners, leaving him to deal with whatever he chose. Julie had never been entirely sure, in the two years they had worked together, what he actually did. He hadn't spent a lot of time in his office or his quarters, but whenever questioned, Blain would merely say that he had enough to keep him busy.

He only got away with it because he and Noble were friends.

Governor Noble. His face floated in her mind's eye again, and through the feeling of vague sickness, a heavy cloak of sorrow and guilt threatened to smother her.

Another movement...