Intermix Nation (43 page)

Lumi snaps her head up. There is distinct
echoing nearby, footsteps drawing closer.

“Lumi,” Nazirah says, strangely calm. “You
have to get out, now.”

“I won’t leave you!”

They’re running out of time. Lumi stands,
glancing nervously at the door. “Lumi, go!” Nazirah cries, voice
cracking. “We can’t defend ourselves with just one knife between
us!” She hands Lumi the bloody dagger. “Find a train to Krush and
warn everyone. I’ll be fine, I promise.”

“Fuck your promises!” Lumi sobs, embracing
her tightly. Their faces mirror blood smears. The footsteps are
right outside now.

“Leave!”

“Thank you,” Lumi whispers. “Don’t let them
break you.”

“I won’t,” she says softly. They exchange
one final glance before Lumi hops off the ledge, down and out of
sight. Nazirah is quite certain they will never see each other
again. Lumi is gone for mere seconds before the compartment door
slides open, revealing Grum wielding a pistol.

The look of total shock on Grum’s face is
almost comical. He stalks around the compartment, taking in the
massacre, kicking over a pile of logs. “Fucking Deathlanders,” he
scoffs, toeing Ramses’ body. “Never trust one to get the job done
right.” Grum bends down, running two scarred fingers along Ramses’
neck. Raising his hand, he watches the blood drip to the floor in
morbid fascination. He grins up at her and Nazirah resists the urge
to vomit. “Is this your work, Nation? Never knew you had it in
you.”

“I seem to surprise you a lot,” she says,
staring forward, unable to look at what she’s done.

Grum pats her down roughly. He takes longer
than necessary, making sure to cop a feel here and there. Pulling
out a key from his pocket, Grum unlocks the cuff from the pole,
quickly handcuffing both of Nazirah’s hands behind her back. “That
was my fault,” he says, “for letting you catch me off guard.” He
pushes her forward towards the door. “Not because you have any
fighting ability, get that straight.”

“Ramses might disagree,” Nazirah says,
sounding braver than she feels.

He grips her hard. “In any case,” he growls,
“I won’t be making that mistake again.” Grum recounts the bodies.
Nazirah stares sadly at Taj, slumped on the floor, before she gets
shoved out of the compartment. “Where’s Grigori, Nation? Did she
leave you here to rot so she could make it home to her boyfriend? I
doubt she’ll get far.”

Nazirah ignores him. “You were the one who
leaked our trip to the slums?”

“Of course I did.” Grum chuckles behind her
as they walk towards the front of the train. “Right before I left
for Osen, I overheard a call between the Commander and Slome. It
would have been rude to keep information like that all to myself.”
He presses the pistol into Nazirah’s back. “I was very lucky,” Grum
continues. “The Chancellor was getting a tad impatient before that.
Your brother would never willingly tell me anything confidential.
He doesn’t quite like me much … can’t imagine why.”

“Your plan backfired,” Nazirah hisses. “If
anything, that fire made us stronger!”

“Even the best laid plans can go to shit,”
he snaps. They’re in the first compartment now, near the train’s
entrance. Nazirah hears muffled voices outside the door. “Like
yesterday, for example. We waited weeks until we could safely get
you, planned on kidnapping you after the bonfire. But we had to
wait all night long.” He whispers in her ear. “It’s a pity the
Chancellor forbade me from going after Morgen. I would have loved
to join in on the fun last night.”

“Go to hell.”

Grum whirls Nazirah around so they face each
other. His thick keloid bulges, knotted veins bursting in anger.
“I’ve been there,” he growls, pointing at his scarred face. “I’m
not anxious to return.”

He grabs Nazirah by the collar, kicking the
door open and hauling her outside. She’s momentarily blinded by the
bright lights, the cameras shuttering and flashing. The large crowd
hisses and jeers, throwing stones. Nazirah holds a bloody hand up,
shielding her face. Grum leads her off the train platform, sea of
onlookers parting before them. A mother protects her young
daughter. Someone screams. They stare at Nazirah like she is a
caged animal, untamable, wild and dangerous. Everyone here knows
her face, just like everywhere else in Renatus. But here, Nazirah
is not the ally. She is not even the intermix.

She is the enemy.

Petite and filthy, completely terrified,
Nazirah scares these Medis to the bone. She wants to scream at
them! Can’t they see? They have all the power! And she has none!
But as Grum drags her outside, into the smog and gasps and sobs,
Nazirah isn’t so sure that’s true.

Perhaps isn’t true at all.

Nazirah hisses at one of them, a little boy,
just to see his reaction, just to feel the control. He bursts into
tears. Several onlookers step back. She feels disgusted with
herself. This boy can’t be older than Cayu, than Caria. Nazirah
turns to apologize, but Grum shoves her into the backseat of a
police vehicle, a waiting motorcade of blaring sirens and horns.
None of this is right. She can’t become the monster they believe
her to be. Nazirah thinks of Ramses, lying in a pool of his own
blood. She thinks of the moment when she slit his throat … that
devastating satisfaction she felt.

She wonders if she’s too late.

Nazirah sits uncomfortably on the edge of
her seat, fighting amazement as they ride through Mediah. A network
of bullet trains and skyways paint the horizon. Fluorescent streets
wind around the capital, stacked vertically and slicing through
buildings. Cars jet across them, drivers indifferent to their doom,
should they misjudge a turn and careen over an edge.

Shoppers flood the streets on every level,
weighed down by bags and consumer addictions. Captured intermix are
chained to storefront window displays, modeling clothes ironically,
starvation chic. Many of them are being flogged.

Spectators abound and laugh. Children lick
ice cream from dripping cones. Nazirah’s body jerks with every
crack of the lashes, like she is under the whips herself. Steel and
glass skytowers ascend through rock, air, smog, and cloud. Nazirah
cranes her neck, unable to see where they end. When Nazirah was a
child, she built sandcastles she thought could touch the heavens.
And the Medis nearly did it.

But they are no closer to the gods.

“Disgusting, aren’t they?” Grum asks, as
though reading her thoughts. “These parasites.”

“Parasites?”

“Listen up, Nation,” he says. “Because this
is something no history book will ever teach you. Mediah is a ruse,
a distraction designed to keep Medis entertained, fat and
complacent on glut and lust and greed.”

“A ruse to hide what?”

“Look around and guess for yourself,” he
answers. “It’s not hard to figure out.”

Nazirah does. All she sees are the flashing
lights, the glitter and hyperintense color. But then, Nazirah
realizes. It’s not what she sees, but what she does not see. Trees,
wildlife, vegetation, water. “Life here isn’t sustainable,” she
says.

“Completely obvious,” Grum agrees. “But
still, no one really gets it.” He leans closer, inches away from
her face. The stench of his rancid breath suffocates her. “The
Medis hate intermix, Nation. Tell me why.”

Nazirah shrugs. “Because they forbid
interracial breeding.”

“Why?”

“Because they want to maintain racial
purity.”

“Wrong.”

“Because we threaten them.”

“You’re getting there.”

“I don’t understand where you’re going with
this,” she snaps.

“Color me shocked,” he retorts. “The Medis,
as a race, are dying! It may take a while, but they are dying
nonetheless. They have no immunity to disease anymore, or famine,
or hardship. Centuries of self-prescribed inbreeding have sullied
their chromosomes, leaving them stale and fragile. Haven’t you ever
wondered why their MEDIcine program is booming? Why they are all
drug addicts and pill poppers?”

“What does that have to do with
intermix?”

“Everything!” he cries
passionately. “We are everything they are not! Everything they
could never be! Do you think the majority of Medis could ever
survive the slums, the Deathlands? Half of them would be dead
within a week! Our genes are dominant, not theirs! Even in the most
turbulent situations, intermix thrive. The Medis leech off our
resources, suckling the teat of self-righteousness. They condemn
and slaughter us, only to study our genetics! They isolate
themselves in their homogenous skytowers … city … lives … all to
hide from the simple truth that would collapse their entire dogma.
Despite their purity, they are weak. And
because
of our impurity, we are
strong.”

“And you’re right!” Nazirah cries. “Like you
said, we’re intermix! We mean nothing to them! Why would you betray
us?”

“You’re too naïve, Nation,” he says. “I need
to look out for myself, because no one else will. Haven’t you
learned by now that everyone has a price? Especially intermix.”

“Take what you want and screw everyone
else,” she spits. “Is that it?”

“Now you’re catching on.”

The vehicle stops after a short journey.
Grum drags Nazirah outside into a minefield of armed guards,
reporters, and news vans. Nazirah recognizes the skytower
instantly. She’s seen it countless times on television and in the
papers and books back home. It’s the capitol building of Renatus,
the country’s symbol of power. Here at government headquarters, the
Chancellor conducts his business … sermons from the pulpit of
hell.

Grum pushes Nazirah through the entrance,
but not before having to turn over his pistol to one of the guards.
They walk quickly across the large lobby, where government
employees idly chat.

The entire room immediately goes silent. A
man with lilac spectacles spills coffee down the front of his
shirt, but doesn’t bother to wipe it. An emaciated secretary
shrieks and runs into a wall, knocking the steel bouffant off with
a dull clang, revealing her shaved head beneath. Several people
light cigarettes and take deep, shaky drags.

Grum pulls Nazirah through the extensive
elevator bank and into a waiting glass lift. He presses the button
for the top floor. The doors close with a hiss. The lift rapidly
shoots upwards, climbing thousands of feet. Nazirah watches the
city fall and fold beneath her. She glances at Grum, noticing he
appears queasy. Nazirah considers trying to take him out. But she
isn’t eager to test the strength of this glass cage.

They exit at the top, walk down a luxurious
hallway plated in gold towards an ornate door. Grum enters without
knocking, dragging her inside. Nazirah looks around, needing no
introduction.

She’s been here before.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

There were once tigers.

And electric blue champagne, restrained
laughter, even a fuchsia piano. Now there is only emptiness …
threatening emptiness. The grand room of the Morgen penthouse is
cold and lifeless, a mausoleum of sepulchered hopes and marble
dreams.

Men smoke cigars around a circular table,
drinking and gambling. A pile of gold bars and jewels rests before
them. A row of girls, dolled-up in makeup and luxury, quiver in a
line nearby. As Grum pulls Nazirah closer, she can see they are
chained to one another. “Full house!” one man says, showing the
others his cards. He greedily rubs his hands together, claiming his
winnings.

“Fine, Roskum,” another sighs. “Pick
one.”

The man named Roskum stands. He walks down
the line of girls, scrutinizing each one. They squirm under his
stare, eyes averted. He stops before a girl with ebony skin, barely
a teenager, clearly fighting back tears. Roskum touches her exposed
shoulder. “Has she bled yet?” he asks.

“No,” someone casually responds.

“Then I’ll take this Deathland bitch.”

Another man slams his hand on the table. “I
wanted her,” he complains.

“Armison, I’ll let you have her when I’m
done,” Roskum says, laughing, “if you deal with the disposal.”

“I don’t share,” Armison snaps, looking up.
“And I don’t want anyone’s sloppy.…” He spots Nazirah, eyes bulging
and then slanting. “Gabirel … how much for the pretty
intermix?”

Roskum scans the lineup of girls again,
confused. “There’s no intermix in this.…”

“She’s not for sale.”

Everyone looks at the Chancellor, then at
Nazirah in shock. Armison says, “Name your price.”

“Nothing you can afford,” Gabirel says,
rising elegantly. He approaches Nazirah, flanked by two young
female bodyguards armed with machine guns. Nazirah is unnerved by
how much he resembles Adamek. But his eyes are black, burning
coals, not striking green. Just one glance and her stomach turns
over. They may look alike, but the similarities end there. “You’re
late, Nazirah,” Gabirel chides, taking a long drag of his cigar. “I
was so worried you wouldn’t be able to make it.” His voice is soft,
with an unnaturally singsong cadence. Gabirel blows smoke in her
face, singeing her lungs, as he observes her bloody appearance.
“You are pretty, I’ll give you that. But for all your pretty holes,
you cannot hide that filthy blood.”

“I believe you have something for me,” Grum
snaps.

Gabirel retrieves a gold bar from his
pocket. “It’s rude to speak out of turn,” he says, tossing it
Grum’s way. “But how could someone like you know any better?” His
companions snicker, watching in amusement. “And your eleventh hour
associate?”

Nazirah tenses and Grum shrugs
noncommittally. “Taken care of.”

Gabirel looks at Nazirah quizzically. “I
see.”

“Are we done here?” Grum asks, flinging a
guard the key to Nazirah’s handcuffs.

“You can go, intermix.”