Donor 23 (7 page)

“Oh, pish posh,” Dolly uttered. “Besides, everyone in this quarter knows anyways; they just don’t talk about it.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“You’re a very brave—”

Joan brushed her off, “I’m not brave. I have to go.”

As she opened the door, she felt regretful—felt she rushed the visit. Guilt. She turned, “So, been out today?”

Dolly shook her head.

“You should get out, Dolly. The weather’s warming up. I can come by tomorrow. I don’t have to go to the Center. We could go for a walk—”

“I’ll get out and enjoy the sun. Don’t worry,” Dolly smiled with an understanding gaze. She squeezed Joan’s arm. Joan
started to leave, but on an impulse, she turned and hugged Dolly.

When she attempted to pull back, she found she couldn’t. Dolly kept a firm hold on her—a bear hug. The peach rolled off her lap and onto the floor. After Dolly let go, Joan picked up the peach.

“I’ll try to make it tomorrow. It’ll be in the afternoon,” she said. She handed the peach to Dolly. “You know, I wouldn’t mind some of your famous peach pie.”

Dolly winked, “You got it.”

Out on the street, two young men rushed up to Joan from behind. One grabbed her shoulders and made a little growl, momentarily startling Joan.

“Reck,” she cried with exasperation.

At eighteen years old, Reck Tyndall stood over six-feet tall, with thick black hair set off by his hazel eyes. A quiet and serious demeanor expressed itself in his unassuming manner. His handsome looks attracted girls in the ghetto, but his shyness kept him away from them.

Kaleb stood near him. He was nineteen, short and slight with dark black skin, black curly hair, and deep-brown, almost-black eyes. He had terrible eyesight and wore glasses, compliments of Joan. They were all best friends and had been since they were kids.

Kaleb’s grandmother Zenobia called them the Three Musketeers. The kids had not understood the reference. In Zenobia’s younger days, she had worked for a wealthy citizen. Her job gave her access to banned books, which she read on the sly, so she always referred to strange things. She was a sage of sorts in the ghetto. Zenobia told them the nickname meant “all for one, one for all.” The kids liked that motto. They also liked the name and used it in the neighborhood. Soon everyone began calling them the Musketeers, even though no one understood what it meant.

“Knew we’d find you here,” Reck motioned to Dolly’s apartment.

“I have plenty of food,” Joan said, shrugging it off.

“It’s not just that. You try to save her husband and now you help her—”

“Reck, you know I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sorry.”

Joan offered, “Hey guys, I don’t have to get up early tomorrow. Want to get together tonight?”

“Our Governor and his spoiled brat letting you have a rest?” Reck said sarcastically.

“Give it a rest, Reck. You know, Our Governor is the one you can thank for the food I just gave Dolly.”

Joan was still excited regarding her meeting with the Governor. She desperately wanted to talk about it, but she knew her friends’ opinions. So she didn’t mention it.

She also didn’t want to say in front of Reck that Duncan had been there. Reck had a crush on her. She liked him, too—very much. They had been alone one afternoon the previous week, sitting on the roof of her building. He wrapped his arms around her. She relished the feel of his muscles and delighted in his masculine scent. A cold wind blew, and she nuzzled her face into his neck. He abruptly pulled her face to him and kissed her.

Two months ago he had been rated a “ten” by the System. The System rated donors at age eighteen for health, vigor, and strength on a scale of one to ten, ten being highest. If highly rated donors married other highly rated donors, the System paid them a cash bonus. The greater the couple’s rating, the higher their combined ranking—then the greater the bonus. The rating scale was a genius incentive by the System to encourage a healthy donor population. The belief was that healthy and fit donors gave birth to healthy and fit donor children, which was all the better for organ donation and all the better
for the citizenry. Then, of course, for each healthy child the couple gave birth to, they received another bonus.

Joan realized she would obtain a high ranking when she turned eighteen in a few months. Their friends and family assumed Joan and Reck, best of friends since childhood, would get married one day. Joan never told anyone her true goal—to buy citizenship for her and her father, to get out of the ghetto. As a result, she couldn’t—wouldn’t—let herself develop strong feelings in that way. She wouldn’t fall in love, at least not right now. She concentrated on maintaining her athletic talents, keeping up donations, and earning bonuses. She couldn’t deal with a boyfriend. Being alone with Reck was problematic, and she was glad when the three of them hung out together. Kaleb took the pressure off. Maybe that was why she liked Duncan. There was no pressure. Nothing could ever come of it.

She told them, “I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, but it’s later in the morning. How about a flicker? Isn’t there something new playing at the theater?”

Kaleb spoke up, “It’s just another propaganda flick.”

“Kaleb, with you everything is propaganda,” she laughed.

Kaleb was the intellectual one in the group—determined, articulate, and persuasive. Reck, rugged and ready for action, looked after his smaller friend. Kaleb always had something reactionary to say—usually something dangerous. Once he explained to Joan donors didn’t cause the now forgotten disease after the Impact. The Alliance relied upon that “fact” for implementing the System many, many years ago.

The reason was straightforward enough at the beginning: some of the population had a precious immunity against a disease that was decimating mankind. The new disease was most likely caused by the asteroid and its resultant dust cloud, coupled with the immediate squalor and lack of food. While many succumbed to the illness, there were many who did not. Not because they were physically superior; it was just genetic
luck. The System forced these people with the immunity—later called donors—to transfer it to others through blood transfusions.

Simple enough. That was the undemanding way it started. But over the years, the Alliance gradually broadened the reaches of the System, taking away more and more rights of the donors. Like a poisonous vine, its tentacles now reached into the entire body of a donor, slinking through, wrapping around, and taking whatever organ a citizen desired.

“The new flick is about our heroic First Governor,” Kaleb said sarcastically. “As usual, he’s the saving grace after the Impact. It shows him single-handedly fighting off hoards of violent barbarians, saving what was left of mankind’s knowledge and forming the Alliance, which now protects us from the dangers of the bloodthirsty people Outside. Is that something you really want to see? Didn’t you get enough in school? It’s always the same. You know, Zenobia told me everyone used to be citizens. It was only after—”

Joan interrupted with a lowered voice, “Now
you’re
talking propaganda. You shouldn’t talk like that out here on the street.” She raised her voice, “I gotta go. My dad should be home by now. Reck, did you happen to see him at work today?”

Both Reck and Mr. Lion worked for the city sewer department.

“Yup,” he said.

She looked at Reck and thought of the kiss they recently shared on the rooftop—not a quick kiss, but long, leisurely and caring. Their lips had parted. She had not pulled away. A boy had never kissed her like that. While extremely fond of Reck, she expected to feel something more…well,
something more
. She didn’t know what, though.

One time at the Center, Duncan put his arms around her to help her with archery. He had stood behind her, his right arm barely touching hers as he moved her elbow into the perfect
position to pre-draw the bow. His left arm reached around to her chin, tenderly shifting it. She had gasped and caught her breath. Tingling had traveled up and down her spine. Goose bumps appeared. Duncan must have noticed because he whispered, “You’re breathing too fast. Remember, take slow, deep breaths from your diaphragm. Exhale as you nock the arrow.”

Joan turned her thoughts from Duncan, and when Reck didn’t respond further, she finally asked, “Well, how was he?”

Reck obviously didn’t want to say, but he couldn’t lie to her. “He looked like the ‘sun had been bright in his eyes’ last night.”

It was a kinder way of saying a person had been drinking heavily the night before. Her father had many nights like that since they executed Joan’s mother eight months ago. Sometimes Joan wondered if her father knew the truth. Maybe that was why he drank.

Changing the subject, Reck asked her with concern, “Hey, what’s up with tomorrow? Not another donation?” He tenderly grasped her hand.

Reck clearly cared for Joan. He always worried about her donations. The threat of donations was a mystery to him, as he never faced the possibility. His benefactor cut him loose and made him a solus at a young age. Luckily for him, he was strong and healthy and able to make a good living working in the sewers. So although he had no benefactor who needed him, he wasn’t a burden to the Alliance. And now that he had a high marriage rating, the System even deemed him useful to the Alliance.

Joan shrugged, “Just the usual.” She squeezed his hand—he was special to her, not exactly as she was to him—but she had her objectives, and she struggled with that. He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it. She gently removed her hand from his grasp and stroked his cheek. Kaleb loudly cleared his throat, reminding them of his presence.

Appreciatively, but with genuine hesitation, she withdrew her hand. “So, tonight?”

Kaleb demurred, saying, “We can’t. We have a meeting to go to.”

Joan looked at them, and she understood. The two of them attended “meetings” often. She suspected they were underground meetings. Joan knew of an underground movement among the donors but had nothing to do with them. Troublemakers and criminals the Alliance called them. Joan had her goals clear in her mind, and she was going to stick with them. Thankfully, neither Kaleb nor Reck ever pressed her to join the underground. Because she wouldn’t have.

6

J
oan unpacked the groceries as her father walked in. Staffan Lion limped toward the kitchen. His tall frame hunched over slightly, making him appear shorter. He had dark brown hair, receding on the sides, and brown eyes. Joan didn’t look like him. As her father always said, with a smile, she luckily favored her mother. It was silly self-deprecation because Staffan Lion had been, and still was, a handsome man.

He had never been called upon to donate an organ, but he often had to use a cane to walk. One day while he was working in the sewers, a metal beam in a tunnel collapsed, breaking his back. Fortunately for him, his unknown benefactor had paid for his medical treatment. Joan worried why that happened, concerned a major donation might be in the offing. Although two years had passed, the concern still nagged at her.
What if it happened? He was all she had.
Every day she
waited to hear his footsteps in the hallway coming home from work. She comprehended how it worked. It could happen at any time. He would just disappear. A snatcher van would slowly leave the ghetto.

“Hey, Dad,” Joan called out.

“Sweetie,” he replied.

He came in, and she reached to give him a hug.

“Careful,” he warned. “Had to go down in the tunnels today. Stink a little. How’s your day?”

Joan didn’t care, and she hugged him anyway.

“Wait till you hear. You’ll never guess whom I met,” she said excitedly.

As she told him the story about her encounter with the Governor, Staffan sighed and poured himself a drink.

That evening, Joan tossed and turned in her sleep. She awoke and through the darkness sensed the photo of Gates staring at her from across the room, just as it did eight months ago when Nox interrogated her.

“I swear, sir, Colonel Nox, sir—”

“It’s Captain,” he said soothingly.

“Captain, sir, I swear, I don’t know anything.”

The Master Manipulator continued talking—softy, gently, monotonously. She lost track of what he said—stuff about the apartment, the weather, the food she liked, on and on, always in a calming voice. Like a fish on a line, he reeled her in.

He came closer and put his arm lightly around her shoulder. Joan cringed. He smiled, a bland and forbidding grin, and spoke kindly, in an almost fatherly manner.

Nox watched her intently. Her lower lip quivered. Fear. Now it was time for the hope.

“Breaking our laws is a terrible thing. But the Governor need never know—or Tegan, for that matter. No one will ever know. Not your mother…I can help you. Will you let me help you, Joan?”

She jerked her head at the mention of her name. It always unnerved a donor. Donors guarded their names from citizens as if they were private, sacred. His casual use of her name gave the impression he was on familiar terms with her, knew her thoughts, and was an intimate friend.

“In a moment those officers will come back in here, and I won’t be able to help you. It may be the machine for your mother and you.”

Joan noticeably gasped.

“I don’t want that to happen, Joan,” he murmured reassuringly.

She wavered. A conflict battled out inside her. He had her. It was too easy.

“I want to help you, Joan. I know it’s difficult. You don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to speak. Just show me. Point.”

Then he used her name again, “Joan.”

He paused a minute. He couldn’t wait too long, couldn’t allow this delicate moment to pass. He began to guide her with his arm, ever so slightly, to where, he did not know. But he was certain she would take over and lead the way.

She did. Walking into the bedroom, she stopped. The inner struggle waged again.

Ever so quietly, almost inaudibly, he said, “Just point, Joan.”