Intermix Nation (13 page)

A buzz of excitement goes through the class.
The recruits look at the Iluxor in awe. No one from the territories
has ever seen technology like this, has ever imagined something
like this existed.

“What’s the point of this?” Cato scoffs,
unimpressed.

“Soldiers of Mediah normally use the Iluxor
to channel their worst memories and, by extension, their biggest
fears,” Adamek explains. “It’s widely believed that, by replaying
these memories over and over, you eventually become immune to them.
You can theoretically overcome all of your fears, making you a
better warrior, able to fight independently of fear. Your
Commanders have asked me to familiarize you with this technique, so
that when the time comes, you will be ready.”

“This is ridiculous,” Cato huffs.

Nazirah agrees. She might expect this of
Gloom and Doom, but of her brother? She can’t believe Niko actually
sanctioned Adamek teaching them Medi war techniques! And why? So
they could become fearless killers in battle? They are already
walking the fine line between Medi and rebel.

Nazirah looks apprehensively at the case.
She knows exactly what her worst memory is.

“Now,” Adamek says, as though reading
Nazirah’s mind, “since none of you have ever been exposed to
something like this before, you won’t see any heavily fear-driven
memories today. And because this is obviously extremely personal,
I’ll be assisting recruits individually.” Adamek lifts up the
briefcase and begins calling them forward alphabetically from
memory. “Adams.”

A scrawny boy to Nazirah’s left gets up
hesitantly and follows Adamek out the door. Once they are gone, the
class bursts into intense conversation.

“Can you believe this?” Cato rants. “It’s
like the commanders want us to think like the Medis! Aren’t we
supposed to be against their twisted logic?”

“But Cato,” Aneira responds, unusually
passionate, “how can we expect to fight them, if we don’t know how
they operate? We have to be as strong, as fearless, as they are. Or
else we’ll never win!”

They launch into a heated discussion, which
Nazirah immediately tunes out. Talk of bad memories and overcoming
fears has led Nazirah to a place she doesn’t want to go, a place
she’s spent weeks trying to avoid. And now she’s being forced
there. With Adamek Morgen, yet again, as her teacher.

Cato notices her silence. “How are you
handling this, Irri?”

“I’ll be fine Cato, don’t worry,” Nazirah
reassures him. “I can handle myself.” Nazirah smiles encouragingly
at Lumi, but she appears lost in her own thoughts. At least Nazirah
isn’t alone in not wanting Adamek to mess with her head.

He returns barely a minute later, alone.
“Caal.”

Cato rises from his seat. He gives Nazirah’s
shoulder a reassuring squeeze and follows Adamek out the door.
Nazirah wonders what his memory will be. Will Cato think about his
family? About how he left his little sister and older brother
behind in Rafu, when they came here to start this new, hopefully
not final, chapter of their lives?

More names are called and Nazirah’s
classmates dwindle. What waits for her in the Iluxor? Nazirah is
torn between wanting to see her parents and wanting to see nothing
at all. And she isn’t the only one. Most of her remaining
classmates also appear frightened and nervous. Adamek enters the
room after calling Ansel Mays and Nazirah knows she’s next.

“Nation.”

Nazirah is already off her chair. She
follows him into an empty classroom. Adamek shuts the door behind
them. He motions for her to take a seat in one of the wooden chairs
in front. As she sits, Nazirah notices it’s drizzling outside. The
window is cracked open and a cool breeze gently blows in. Nazirah
shivers lightly. Adamek sits across from her. He has long sleeves
on today. Nazirah hasn’t been alone with him since they fought in
the library, since before Lumi’s confession. She stares at the
desk, unbidden thoughts of the two of them together. He takes in
her odd behavior, but says nothing.

“How short are these memories?” she asks.
“It seems like recruits have been going in and out so quickly.”

He fills up two syringes with serum, each a
quarter full. “Time works differently under the Iluxor,” he says.
“What feels like hours in your mind can translate as a few minutes
in reality. It all depends on the individual, on the memory.”

“Can I choose the memory I want?”

“It’s possible,” Adamek says, “but it’s not
something you would know how to do yet. Only someone with years of
experience could lead you through it.”

Adamek reaches into his pocket, takes out an
elastic strap. He ties it gently around Nazirah’s upper arm.
Nazirah squirms in her seat, cringing as Adamek injects her. Adamek
unties the elastic and tosses it onto the table. He then
unceremoniously injects himself with the remaining syringe.

“What are you doing?” she asks warily.

Adamek disposes the used needles in a nearby
closed container. He grabs the Iluxor from the desk and sets it
carefully in Nazirah’s lap. “A curious girl like you should have
figured this out by now,” he says.

Nazirah is shocked. “You’re going in my head
with me?”

“This isn’t something a beginner does
alone.”

“This isn’t happening!”

Adamek’s eyes sparkle playfully. “Trust
me.”

Trust him?

Is he kidding?

“Maybe in your next life,” Nazirah scoffs.
But she really just wants to get this over with. She reaches out to
place a hand on the Iluxor, remembering Adamek mentioning something
about sensory vibrations. Adamek catches it, stopping her. Nazirah
pulls her hand away quickly. “What?” she asks.

“I have to clear it first,” he says. “Or
else it would be Ansel Mays’s memory that we’re seeing. And I’m not
interested in watching him fumble through losing his virginity
again.”

Nazirah flushes, not wanting to see that
either. Adamek touches a small corner of the glass. The Iluxor
shines brightly before turning transparent. “It stores memories?”
she asks. “That’s such an invasion of privacy.”

“It doesn’t store memories.” He sighs,
grabbing her hand and placing it on top of the Iluxor. “It has
vibrational memory, meaning that the last thing it channels is kept
at a certain frequency in the machine, until erased. That’s just
how it works.”

“Fine, so it stores a memory,” Nazirah
mutters, trying to ignore Adamek’s hand over hers. “It’s still an
imposition on a person’s most private secrets. Especially with
someone else watching.”

Adamek places his hand on the surface of the
Iluxor as well. Nazirah watches, transfixed, as the glass cube
under their fingers begins filling with glittering white mist.
There is an impish spark in his eyes. “Have secrets to hide, do
we?”

Nazirah thinks of Adamek and Lumi, of his
strange tattoos, of how she still doesn’t know anything about him
or his motives. “I’m not the only one.”

He touches the corner of the glass once more
with his free hand. “No,” he says quietly. “You’re not.”

#

The white cliffs of Rafu greet her
first.

They wave, smiling hello to an old friend
they haven’t seen in months. Nazirah’s hair whips violently around
her face as her senses imbibe the salty smell of the sea. The air
is fat off grass and sunshine, the rays like warm velvet upon her
skin. A cliff drops off a few yards ahead. The cerulean and emerald
Eridian lagoons glitter below, waiting patiently.

Nazirah wears the same clothes as in class,
except now she is barefoot. She can feel the prickly grass under
her feet. Adamek stands next to her. Nazirah finds that their hands
are intertwined. He stares at their hands and then releases her.
“What is it with you and bare feet?” he asks, voice slightly
distorted.

Nazirah looks down, realizing he still has
shoes on. She finds this inappropriately hilarious. Her laughter
echoes strangely, like she is at the bottom of a well.

Nazirah hears voices behind her in the
distance and instantly knows what memory this is. She sees a
slightly younger version of herself running up the cliff towards
them, Cato trailing not far behind. Nazirah wants to ask Adamek how
she can see herself, if this is her memory, but she doesn’t
question the Medi science.

She is fifteen again.

Nazirah looks younger here, but not by much.
Her hair is slightly shorter, just as unruly, and bleached heavily
from the intense sunlight. Her chest is flatter, hips narrower,
body tanner from lying on the beach all day. Her smile is as bright
as the sun above her, unburdened by the troubles she carries now.
Even though her father has been ill for months and her family is
struggling to survive, this Nazirah is filled with youthful
optimism she never imagines will be ripped from her. This is the
carefree girl of her past.

This is Irri.

“Cato, come on!”

Irri steps a few feet in front of Nazirah,
looking over her shoulder, waiting for Cato to catch up. Nazirah
wonders if she really sounds like that. She takes in her former
self’s choice of white shorts and ratty tank top. She practically
lived in that shirt all summer.

Cato comes into view behind Irri, slightly
out of breath. Nazirah is startled by how much he has grown up in
the past three years. He looks like a little boy here, at sixteen.
Nazirah will definitely tease him about that later.

“Irri, this is such a bad idea,” Cato says,
but his smile tells her otherwise.

Irri walks forward a little farther. She
stops at the edge of the cliff, which juts out almost a hundred
feet above the lagoon. Irri peers down, then glances back at Cato
excitedly. “A bad idea is just a good idea done wrong.”

“Irri …” Cato warns.

Irri backs away from the edge. She gently
takes his hands. “Trust me?”

Nazirah remembers several weeks ago, when
she purposely asked Cato that again by the swings. And then, just
before, Adamek said the same thing to her. She looks at him
curiously, but he’s focused on the scene before them.

Is it a coincidence?

“You know I do.”

“Then don’t be such a coward,” Irri says
mischievously. Without further pretense, Irri strips off her tank
top, exposing a deep navy bra below. She tosses the shirt on the
grass casually and unbuttons her shorts. Irri turns away from Cato,
not giving him another thought.

Nazirah is mortified. Did she really do
that? She would never undress like that in front of Cato now!
Nazirah doesn’t dare peep at Adamek again. Cato looks at Irri
longingly, clearly conflicted. Nazirah’s heart drops into her
stomach. They started this far back, his feelings for her? She
wishes more than ever that Adamek wasn’t here to see this. This
moment isn’t for him.

Irri kicks off her shorts, revealing
mismatched underwear underneath. She walks back to the edge of the
cliff. Cato, fears alleviated, smiles widely and pulls off his
shirt. He comes up beside her. “This is crazy,” he says.

Irri entwines their hands. She and Cato
stare into the serene waters below, then share a significant look.
Nazirah knows exactly what Irri will say next. She mouths the words
along with her, a single tear rolling down her cheek.

“No,” they say. “This is beautiful.”

Chapter
Ten

The memory fades away.

Nazirah finds herself sitting in the drafty
classroom once again, gasping. She forces herself to take deep
gulps of air. She looks up, notices Adamek watching her. There is
an emotion behind his eyes she cannot place. But Nazirah isn’t
focusing on that. She can’t stop thinking of that memory, of that
indescribable rush, of that feeling.

“Can we do it again?” she whispers.

Adamek shakes his head, not taking his eyes
off her. He lifts the glass cube from Nazirah’s lap, placing it on
the desk beside them. “Like I said … Medi soldiers use the Iluxor
to face their worst fears and move past them. But it’s more
popularly used recreationally throughout Mediah. Medis use it to
escape reality. Many of them get hooked on it, addicted like it’s a
drug. Reliving their past over and over again becomes their
reality, their present, their future. It can be very dangerous if
you aren’t careful.”

Nazirah looks wistfully at the dormant
glass, thinking about how she uses reading as her own escape tool.
She wonders how it will ever suffice, now that she knows what else
is possible. “I never thought Medis would need to escape reality,”
she says.

Adamek stands up. “Intermix don’t have a
monopoly on human suffering, Nation.”

“I know that,” she snaps, rising from her
seat as well. Deep in her heart, Nazirah isn’t sure if she’s ever
really realized it before. They walk to the door, which Adamek
holds open for her. Nazirah should just leave, but she feels like
there is more she needs to say.

“Thank you,” she tells him quickly, before
losing her nerve. Nazirah hopes he understands. She isn’t just
thanking him for today. She’s also thanking him for several weeks
ago, for helping her fight again, helping her find herself …
twisted as his teaching methods are. She’s out the door when he
calls to her.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he says. “Not until
you’ve fully experienced this.”

Nazirah knows he’s right. She will
eventually have to face far worse memories than the one from today.
And she won’t be thanking him then.

#

Later that night, Nazirah sits around a
campfire with the other recruits. As the flames dance and flicker
before her, she cannot stop replaying that memory in her head. The
Iluxor is all the rest of her friends can talk about too.

“That was so insane today,” Taj says,
picking up a stone thoughtfully and tossing it in his hand. “I
never realized how advanced the Medis are, if they can pull stuff
like that! It was weird because I was looking at myself, even
though it was my memory, and I was watching myself as a child play
with my father. We were skipping rocks along the River Syx. It’s
this really dungy river in the northern part of the Red West.” He
sighs. “And it was so uncomfortable because Morgen was there.”