Chapter Twenty

6 1 0
                                    


"Thanks, for coming with me," Mahmoud said from inside the quiet car. "After the day I've had, I think I would have been a quivering puddle by now without you."

"It's no big deal," Rox said noncommittally.

"Don't minimize. That's why it's been good having you here. Because you haven't treated me like a kid, like these are kid problems and the adults have better, more important, more adult things to deal with, when all I've wanted to do is shut down. I think I did, for most of the day. I, I got insanely close to admitting what I brought to school was a bomb."

"But it wasn't."

"But it's hard to remember that. When you've had hours of someone yelling at you, promising it will all go away, that you can leave just as soon as you admit to something you didn't do. Interrogation is a form of torture- especially at a black prison. I couldn't call my parents, and any time I asked for a lawyer they'd tell me something about working to get me a phone call. When I could feel each one of them had a cell phone in their pockets, that there were dozens of working landlines in the place."

"It's bullshit," Rox said.

"I know. That's why I wanted you to ride with me. Because even though you didn't say anything, I could tell you were thinking it." He sighed hotly. "I mean, they're not wrong, to want to protect us. But what they don't understand, what I don't think adults ever really understand, is that they can't protect us. The ignorance and fear and even violence, it's such an indelible part of this world. What happened to me, what happened in Newtown. We don't grow up in a vacuum, away from the impacts of their decisions. They can't shield us from these things- not without changing the world. And for whatever reason, that just seems like too much of a hassle to most of them."

"We could crash their protest," Rox said.

"Maybe. It might just mean a premature cancellation of the protest- which sets us all back. I'm skeptical that a protest accomplishes anything. What did Black Lives Matter accomplish, other than deeper retrenchment and additional racial tension? Not that I'm saying they were wrong. But the 'other side' in this is a group who want to 'conserve' their way of life. It's a group that wants to keep things the way they are, who like to be able to casually use racial slurs or deny gays even the dignity of buying the wedding cake they want, just because that's the way it's always been, it's the way they're comfortable. When you ask them to stop hurting people, their reaction is pretend they're the ones being oppressed. To them, protest is an act of violence; not the kind that will make them think, but the kind that will get someone killed when they retaliate."

"What's our recourse, then?"

"I don't know. Wait for the next plague to wipe out the oldest, most virulent bigots?"

"And that it comes before they push us into an all-out race war."

"Breed war," Mahmoud corrected.

"Unless it all fractures along out-group lines. What if it wasn't just transhumans, but also Latinos, people with African and Asian ancestry, LGBTQs, basically everyone, demanding acceptance and dignity together."

"It'd be great," he said, "if it doesn't come at the other end of a gun."

"This is your spot," the driver said as the car pulled up to the curb.

"I'm really glad I got to meet you," Rox said, and hugged him.

"Don't say teary-eyed goodbyes yet," Mahmoud said. "I get the feeling I'll be sticking around."

BreedWhere stories live. Discover now