On My Way to Paradise by David Farland

the Baker run. We
have to verify the natures of all your upgrades."
    She took a plastic tissue sampler with a dozen small
needles on it and stuck it in my wrist, then pulled the sampler out
and put it in a compartment of the microscope and flipped a switch.
The microscope made some grinding noises, then began reading my
genome, flashing pictures of my DNA on several monitors. I was
relieved to see that each screen read a separate chromosome instead
of cross checking for accuracy. It saved a lot of time.
    Over by the wall a pleasantly drunken man said to a
compadre, "I don’t understand—Now who ... who are we going to
fight?"
    "The Japanese."
    "But I thought we worked for the Japanese?" the drunk
said.
    "Sí. We work for Motoki, and they are Japanese. But
we are going to fight the Yabajin, and they are Japanese, too."
    "Oh. Yaba ...Yaba—what kind of a name is that?"
    "It means barbarians ."
    "But I don’t want to fight barbarians—" the drunk
said, genuinely hurt, "some of my best friends are barbarians!"
    "Don’t tell anyone, or we might not get the job!" a
third man warned.
    Once the lady behind the desk saw that the microscope
was working, she asked for my ID; I gave it to her and submitted to
a retina scan, then she said, "When the shuttles from Independent
Brazil have unloaded their passengers, we’ll open the doors and
begin final processing. Your immunizations will be given on ship.
Until then, have a seat and relax, Mr. Osic."
    I took a seat near the door, away from everyone else,
and pulled the chest with Tamara in it near me. The man with the
gray slacks kept singing. He didn’t speak to anyone or make any
overt signals. I wondered what people would think when they opened
my trunk in customs. All they’d find was a zombie-eyed—Flaco would
have loved that, would have called her "Zombie Eyes"—emaciated,
little witch with a skull full of nightmares. Yet I clung to
her.
    A man just a few seats away was telling a joke: "I
had a friend in Argentina who was awakened one night by someone
pounding on the door: He thought it must be the Nicita Idealist
Socialist Secret Police, so he ran and hid in his closet. The
pounding continued, till finally the visitor broke down the door
and forced his way into the house, then opened the closet: Before
my friend’s eyes stood Death, all dressed in black.
    "My friend shouted, ‘Praise God! I thought it was the
secret police!"
    "Death opened his mouth in surprise and said,
‘They’re not here yet? I must be early!"
    The joke brought only a few chuckles. Yet as I
thought of it, I realized that the man in gray slacks was one of
them: One of the secret police in the joke. It was not a comforting
thought.
    Perfecto went through the same procedure I had, then
came and sat next to me.
    The customs agent fed my ID into her computer, and
began punching in commands. This made me nervous. Sweat began
breaking out on my brow and upper lip. If Arish’s death had been
reported, she would know in a matter of minutes. On the far side of
the room, five men sat along one wall. One small man with a
pencil-bar moustache and long hair, smoked a thin cigar. He was
positioned so he could see the computer terminal, and he stared at
it intently. He was different from the others, abnormally
attentive. His white shirt was bright and clean. Not rumpled and
dirty, as was the attire of most of the rest of us. He stared at
the monitor, then glanced up at me. Abruptly, the customs agent
switched off her computer and rose from her chair. She didn’t look
at me as she left the room.
    "Gringa pubic hair," a big mestizo muttered as the
customs officer walked out the door. Everyone breathed a sigh of
relief and laughed because we had all been made nervous by the
domineering gringa’s presence.
    "Perhaps our smell finally drove her out," one of the
Indians joked, and everyone laughed.
     One heavy-set man across the room said, "So,
Perfecto, you have decided to come with us after all?"
    "I did not decide;