Intermix Nation (12 page)

“It’s an informational essay.”

Adamek snorts, picking up the nearest book.
His face blanches when he reads the title. He thumbs through the
pages. “You’re researching the Medis?”

“It’s for Territory History,” she says.

“Mediah isn’t a territory,” he counters.

“It’s just an assignment,” Nazirah says. “I
didn’t exactly attend class much, when I first … came here. I’ve
had all these makeup essays to do.”

“Ileana would pull something like this.”

“Ileana?”

“Bairs,” Adamek says, closing the book
thoughtfully. “She’s from Mediah, you know.”

“I didn’t,” Nazirah says, surprised.

“Our families are old friends. Her mother is
very sick.” He hands the book back to her. “Until next time,
Nazi.”

Nazirah holds onto the book, not taking it
from him. “Where did you hear that name?”

“Around.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“Let’s just say you have even less friends
here than I do,” Adamek says. “No idea why, since you have such a
winning personality.”

Nazirah wrests the book from him, about to
make some sarcastic comment. Her focus shifts when she sees
Adamek’s sleeve roll up, revealing his Medi tattoo. He rises to
leave, but Nazirah grabs his wrist, stopping him. She stands
quickly.

“Morgen, your tattoo,” Nazirah says,
staring. “It’s different.”

“Different?” he asks, tensing.

Nazirah quickly flips through the book he
just handed her, where she knows she has recently read about the
Median tattoo. She finds the page, triumphantly showing it to him.
“Look here, see?” She points to a picture in the textbook. “It’s
supposed to look like this, a pair of crossed swords with the word
‘Merus,’ meaning ‘pure,’ under it. Yours is more ragged around the
edges, kind of blotchy and deformed.” She leans forward to inspect
it further, but he pulls his arm away.

“So the book is wrong,” he says coldly.
“Drop it.”

“But if the book is wrong about this
insignificant thing,” Nazirah argues, confused by his anger, “then
who knows what else we’re wrong about? You could tell Nikolaus
–”

He grabs her wrist. “Listen, little girl,”
he says, “if you want to keep that pretty head of yours, which
talks without considering the consequences, then don’t involve
yourself in situations beyond your intermix comprehension.”

A hush settles over the library. Its few
occupants openly stare at the two of them, all pretenses of reading
thrown aside.

“Let go of me,” Nazirah hisses. “Or I swear
you’ll be sorry.”

“At least then I’d know you’ve put our
lesson to good use.” Adamek releases her wrist and looks at her
meaningfully before leaving.

#

“Cato, come over here for a second!”

Nazirah sits down beside Lumi on the grassy
hill, watching the recruits kick a ball around. Cato breaks from
the game and trots over to them. He wipes his forehead with his
shirt, breathing hard. “Hey, guys. Did you finish your essay,
Irri?”

“Almost,” Nazirah replies. “Show me your arm
for a minute, will you?” Cato looks at her curiously, shrugging as
he extends his right arm. “No, the other one.”

Cato extends his other arm, revealing his
Eridian tattoo. Nazirah grabs it, looking closer. She notes with
disappointment that the fish silhouette looks exactly like always.
“What are you looking for?” he asks.

“Never mind,” she sighs.

“Are you sure?” jokes Cato. “Because I have
several other extremities you’re welcome to inspect.”

“You’re sick,” she says, laughing. “Go back
to losing your game.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Cato gives them a short salute and then runs
away. Nazirah turns to Lumi. “Can I see yours?” she asks.

Lumi nods, sticking her arm out so Nazirah
can look. The black crescent moon of Zima appears exactly like what
Nazirah has read about. It seems that the history books are
accurate after all, which means Adamek’s tattoo is the enigma.
Nazirah tries to recall when she saw him in the prison, or that
night in the workout room. Did it look different then? She can’t
remember.

They watch the game for a few minutes in
awkward silence. Lately, Lumi has been more sullen than usual.
Nazirah wonders if Cato has anything to do with it. “I just don’t
get it,” Lumi scoffs, shaking her head.

“Don’t get what, Lumi?”

“You,” Lumi snaps. “I don’t get you.”

“Me?”

“You’re such a walking hypocrite,” Lumi
rants. “One day you’re miserable, then you’re happy. One day you’re
a doe-eyed, orphaned little virgin, and then you’re an ass-kicking
whore. You’re so hard to read.”

Lumi’s words sting, but she’s just being
honest. Nazirah can tell Lumi isn’t trying to hurt her; she’s just
telling her how she feels. And a part of Nazirah sees the truth in
her words. “I didn’t realize I came across like that,” she
mumbles.

“Of course you don’t,” Lumi sighs. “Why
would you? I just don’t get what everyone sees in you. What makes
you the special one? You’re not the only one who crap has happened
to. You’re not the only one who ever lost someone.”

Lumi lost her mother when she was only a
child. And her entire family has been uprooted from their home.
Nazirah feels ashamed that she has never asked about any of it. She
says, “We can talk about –”

“Don’t,” Lumi interrupts. “Just …
don’t.”

Nazirah clasps her hands together. They sit
there, silently, watching Taj kick the ball between two designated
garbage cans. He whoops enthusiastically, stretches his arms out,
pretending to soar around the field. Everybody cheers.

“I miss her,” Lumi says suddenly. “I didn’t
appreciate her until I lost her. I’m so lost now. I wish I could
talk to her again.”

Nazirah understands exactly how Lumi feels.
“I know,” she says simply.

“I know why you were asking before,” Lumi
says, “about the tattoos. I noticed it too.”

“Noticed what, exactly?”

“Oh please, Nazirah,” Lumi scoffs, fidgeting
with a strand of blond hair. She seems uncomfortable. “You’re not
the only one here with a brain and two eyes. Adamek’s tattoo; it’s
unusual.”

“You saw it too, Lumi?” Nazirah asks,
excited.

“Obviously.”

“Do you know why it’s abnormal?”

“No idea.” Lumi shrugs her shoulders gently
and Nazirah’s hopes deflate. “He’s got so many tattoos I didn’t
even notice at first. But I noticed his dusza right away. That’s
pretty impossible to miss.”

Dusza? Nazirah has never heard the term
before. “What’s a doo-shah?” Nazirah asks, trying to pronounce it
correctly.

“Really, Nazirah?” asks Lumi, peeved.
“Didn’t you learn anything from your research on Zima?”

Nazirah looks at her guiltily.

“His dusza … his soul tattoos.”

Now Nazirah is beyond lost. “His what?”

“It’s an ancient tradition of ours,” Lumi
says, “like the scratch marks on his hands. I can’t explain it too
well to a southerner. Centuries ago, before our warriors fought in
battle, they received the dusza. It’s an extremely painful ordeal,
but it offered them protection, so they did it.”

“Protection from their enemies?”

Lumi shakes her head. “Zimans believe that
when you kill, you lose a part of your soul. “The dusza … it’s an
old wives’ tale that almost nobody takes seriously anymore. If you
have it and you kill another, it’s supposed to protect you. Your
soul remains intact. But it comes at a terrible price: unbearable
guilt, the burden for the lives you’ve taken.”

“Why would Morgen care about getting Ziman
soul tattoos?”

“Search me.” Lumi shrugs. “Like I said, it’s
a fable, a bedtime story every Ziman child grows up with. I almost
didn’t believe he actually had it, when I first saw it.”

“Lumi,” Nazirah asks curiously, “I’ve never
seen this dusza on Morgen. Where exactly is it?”

Lumi stiffens. “On his back,” she says.

“When did you see his back?”

“God,” Lumi sighs, looking away in
embarrassment. Nazirah gets an unsettling feeling in the pit of her
stomach, as Adamek’s words ring in her head.

Don’t ask a question, if you don’t want to
know the answer.

“Oh,” Nazirah says, realizing.

Lumi faces Nazirah, unusually vulnerable.
“Don’t tell Cato, okay?”

“So you and Morgen are uh … dating?”

Lumi frowns. “No, Nazirah. We’re not
dating.”

“But –”

“I really don’t get it!” Lumi interrupts,
throwing up her hands. “I thought it was all an act, but you really
are that naïve.” Lumi stands, wiping invisible specks of dirt from
her legs. Nazirah remains seated, face aflame. This is the second
time someone has said that to her recently. It must be true. “Cato
cares about you a lot, you know,” Lumi says, before leaving. “Don’t
mess it up.”

Nazirah sits alone on the grass, trying to
decipher her torrent of clashing emotions. She feels compassion for
Lumi, uneasiness about Adamek, and embarrassment for herself. But
there’s more to it than that. Trapped in thought, she distantly
watches the final plays of the ball game. A wave of sickening
revulsion surges over her, once Nazirah pinpoints exactly what else
she’s feeling.

Jealousy.

Chapter
Nine

Nazirah walks into Territory History exactly
one minute early. She was holed up in the library all last night,
finishing her essay on Mediah. The rest of the class is already
there, but Bairs is uncharacteristically late.

The recruits are lounging around, relaxing.
They laugh and sit on desks, speaking easily with one another.
Nazirah spots Cato and Lumi towards the back of the room. She heads
over to them and takes an empty seat next to Cato. Nazirah motions
towards the Bear’s empty desk. “What’s going on?” she asks.

“No one knows,” Taj replies, a few seats
away. He raps on the desk with his fists, drumming an energetic
beat to kill time.

Hadn’t Adamek said over the weekend that
Bairs’s mother was very ill? Nazirah wonders if Bairs is visiting
her or something.

Nazirah pulls out her finished paper in
frustration. She holds it up, showing it to Cato. “Figures.”

Cato smiles sympathetically. “That’s the way
it goes.”

Nazirah gets up and walks towards Bairs’s
desk, wanting to at least put her paper into the inbox. The
classroom door opens and Adamek walks in, holding a silver
briefcase. He heads straight to the front of the room and sets the
briefcase down on the desk. The class immediately goes silent.

Adamek doesn’t need to tell people to take
their seats, doesn’t need to say a word. The recruits automatically
rush to find empty desks. Nazirah is left standing in the front of
the room, staring blankly, paper in hand. Adamek smirks at her.
“Questions already?” he asks.

Nazirah pulls herself together, quickly
walking the rest of the way to the desk. From the corner of her
eye, she sees him enter a four digit code onto the briefcase’s
keypad, unlocking it. Nazirah files the numbers away in her mind,
placing her paper in Bairs’s inbox. “I was handing this in,” she
mutters, not bothering to wait for a response before returning to
her seat.

Lumi seems extremely uncomfortable and
avoids looking at Adamek. He doesn’t even spare her a glance. Anger
boils inside of Nazirah. It’s so typical of guys like Adamek to
sleep with a girl and then move on to someone new. Nazirah shoots
him a scathing look, which of course he notices.

“At the request of your Commanders,” Adamek
says, his voice confident and easy, “I’ll be teaching this class
for a while. Professor Bairs has taken an indefinite leave of
absence.” The class whispers, until Adamek silences it with a look.
“Now I, personally, don’t give a shit about the nuances of each
territory.” Adamek touches the briefcase lightly. Nazirah
recognizes it from Niko’s desk. “Though I’m sure there are many. As
you are undoubtedly aware, the Medis have extraordinarily advanced
technology, military, and medicine. But I don’t think you realize
exactly how advanced.” He opens the case. All the recruits in the
class crane their necks, trying to get a better look.

“What is it?” asks Anzares, from the front
row.

“When Medi soldiers train for battle,”
Adamek says, “they often prepare by using this device, called an
Iluxor. Does anyone know what an Iluxor is?” He looks around the
room, but no one raises a hand. “Nation?” He singles Nazirah out,
picking up her research paper and flipping through it casually. “No
idea? I know from our conversation this weekend how interested you
are in Mediah.”

A classroom of eyes swings to Nazirah,
shocked. Not many people know she and Adamek are on speaking terms.
And they’re not … not really. Adamek is just trying to embarrass
her, getting back at Nazirah for questioning his tattoo. Cato goes
stiff beside her, looking carefully between the two of them.
Nazirah unfortunately does remember reading about the Iluxor. “It
helps soldiers channel and overcome their fears,” she says.

“Correct,” Adamek says, taking out a syringe
full of clear liquid. “Any idea how?”

“No,” she snaps.

Adamek holds up the syringe. “This is a
complex neurological serum. Once in the bloodstream, it stimulates
the neurons in your brain associated with fear and memory. Used
simultaneously with the actual Iluxor” – Adamek holds up what
appears to be a large cube of glass – “which detects these enhanced
brainwaves through sensory vibration – and under the guidance of
someone who actually knows what he’s doing – we can channel these
waves directly into the brain’s occipital lobe, allowing you to
temporarily relive certain memories.”

The entire class stares at Adamek
blankly.

Ansel Mays raises his hand. “So … we can
watch our memories play inside our heads?”

“Basically,” Adamek confirms, placing
everything back into the case and locking it.