Donor 23 (9 page)

When they turned eighteen, every citizen had to serve in some capacity in the armed forces for two years.

“I volunteered for defense force duty, up in the North.”

This news caused Joan to pause on the step, and Duncan stopped a step above her.

He leaned over her and asked, “Are you concerned for me?”

She watched the news. Barbarians attacked the Alliance. The Alliance established forts outside its borders trying to spread the “peace” to the wild inhabitants of the rest of the continent. It could be dangerous for Duncan. His choice surprised her. The children of wealthy or powerful families usually served their duties in the cities, in safe positions. Oftentimes they served their two years as body snatchers. It was a safe job because donors never fought back.

“Well, it can be dangerous,” she said, trying not to sound concerned, as she started up the steps again.

“We all have to do it. How old are you? You’re almost eighteen, right? You’ll be subject to the draft soon, too? Somehow I don’t think you’ll take the easy assignment.”

As a donor, Joan wasn’t subject to the draft. There had been a time when benefactors substituted their donors for themselves, but the Alliance believed this would make for a weak citizenry and changed the rule.

To deflect the subject, Joan said, “Race again?” And she started to go, but he reached out and barred her way, extending his arm in front of her and touching her ever so lightly. Her heart quickened.

“I’ll only race if you tell me your name,” he wagered playfully.

“OK, but you have to win.”

She pushed his arm and bolted up the stairs. He was ready for her this time, and he ran up beside her. A few inches taller than she, he easily took three stairs at a time, reaching the next landing just ahead of her.

“I won!” he gloated, with a sparkle in his light brown eyes.
Almost golden,
Joan thought as she gazed into them,
with a thin yellow ring around the iris
. Joan had noticed he always had a mischievous glint in his eye before he said something witty, and
now was no different as he exclaimed, “And the gold medal goes to the incredibly handsome and talented Duncan Starr! Listen to the roar of the crowd, the applause, the accolades.”

“Yes, and he’s incredibly modest, too, I see,” Joan laughed.

The glint in his eyes again, “Oh, sour grapes? Let’s see, who between us did not win? Who came in second place, in a race of two? Oh, yes, it’s—” he stopped. “Now, Miss Second Place, tell me your name.”

“Another flight,” she said.

“Nope, this is my floor.” He stood in front of her. “Fair and square.”

She didn’t know what to do. He pulled a single flower out of the bouquet. A yellow rose twirled in his hand, and he handed it to her.

“You open to bribery?” he said, smiling.

She took the rose.

“Well?” he persisted.

She looked up at his face and gazed into his eyes. A lock of hair fell on his forehead. Impulsively, she reached up and gently, slowly, brushed it away. As she withdrew her hand, he took it and held it lightly in his own, his eyes locked on hers. His breath quickened. He dropped the flowers, and his hand tenderly reached to her face, caressing her cheek and enticing her. He leaned in.

No
, she thought,
I can’t do this—the rules, the rules of the System
. She quickly pulled her hand back and brushed by him, rushing up the stairs.

He called after her, “Geez, I’m going off to the army! Hey, you still didn’t tell me your name.”

She stopped at the top of the next landing and peered over the banister at him.
It would mean a hefty fine or worse if anyone found out…but to heck with the System this one time.

“Joan,” she said quietly and tentatively, as if exposing her most intimate secret.

It’s a law of physics that sound waves travel up not down, but even if Duncan had not heard, her soft voice would have defied science and reached his heart. Then she turned and ran up the next flight.

Duncan shouted behind her, “Joan, think of me.”

She did think of Duncan. She thought of him as she ran up the stairs and as she walked the hospital hallway. She should have been worried of any fallout that could come from revealing her name to a citizen, but all she could think about was Duncan and the rose in her hand.

Joan happily breezed across the ninth floor—rose in hand. She knew this area well. Many donor auditions took place here because of its convenience for the physicians who reviewed the auditions and results. Donors had to perform at least one audition a year. She’d come here for auditions as a kid, but when Tegan became a professional athlete, Joan and her co-donors switched to exercising and auditioning at the Center.

Much of the floor consisted of a large audition room. Feeling reminiscent, Joan stopped and glanced in through the double swinging doors of the huge room. Bright lights hovered over a matted room full of exercise equipment, treadmills, weight machines, and medical monitors. A couple dozen or so donors worked out at various stations, some of them hooked up to heart or blood pressure monitors. A few proctors strolled the floor with whistles around their necks, keeping tabs on the donors. Mirrors covered an entire wall. Joan smiled as she recalled how she hated those mirrors. She never thought of herself as pretty and didn’t like watching herself exercise.

She glanced at her wrist phone. Her appointment was for a different room, and she walked on. She twirled the rose in her fingers and turned down a hallway, following signs that indicated the way. Turning another corner, the hall opened into an expansive, windowed viewing area. Joan had never seen this.
Slowly, she walked closer to the windows. They overlooked the audition room.

She saw the whole audition room before her as she looked through the glass—through the mirrors she had seen from inside the audition room. In the viewing area, both standing and seated at chairs, people watched the donors—watched the various auditions. They pointed at the donors and spoke into wrist phones.
These were benefactors,
Joan realized. They secretly observed their donors’ auditions behind a one-way mirror.

Two people next to her stood up, bumping her elbow.

“Excuse me,” one politely said to Joan. Then he turned to his companion, “I’m going to cut that number 33 loose. Did you see her at that weight machine? She’s just too weak. My wife doesn’t need two donors, anyway. Come on, I’m hungry. Grab a bite somewhere?”

Joan focused her attention back on the audition room. She spied a middle-aged women with a “33” on her shirt, struggling at a weight machine. Not far away two young, teenage boys performed pull-ups side by side on a bar. They kept stealing glances at each other as they pulled themselves up again and again, both clearly exhausted. Finally, one dropped from the bar. The one still hanging smiled in triumph. The boy on the ground jumped up, intending to do more pull-ups, but a proctor stepped up and shook his head. The proctor turned to the boy still grasping the bar and motioned for him to keep going. He strained but continued the pull-ups.

Something tugged at her heart as she watched them. She pushed the feeling back. A huge poster of the Governor towered over the audition room. Joan stared at it—maybe for too long—and left the viewing area.

8

D
r. Jules Chin drank too much the night before. She stopped at the exam room door, rubbed her eyes, steeled herself, and walked briskly in. The girl sitting on the exam table jumped.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” she calmed Joan.

Joan didn’t respond. She looked down, held the rose to her nose, and took a deep breath. Jules Chin set some papers down and removed the stethoscope from around her neck. Dr. Melnick, Dean Garcia, and a nurse with pink hair quickly entered the room. This time, Chin jumped. Melnick paused and stared at her.

“I’m Jules Chin. I’m the new resident, assigned here in Cardio-Pulmonary. Supposed to observe and assist.”

Melnick nodded his head, “Oh, of course. I’m Dr. Melnick. And this is Dean Garcia. He’s the benefactor’s sports trainer.”

As she set up, Melnick turned to the pink-haired nurse, “Can you ensure all these reports get sent to Dr. Oxman?”

“Right-o, doctor. His office’s a couple floors up, isn’t it?” she replied.

Chin had read the report on this case. The Cardio-Pulmonary Department was her preferred field of practice, but she soon learned many of the cases were donations and—even more distressing—almost every donation resulted in the death of the donor. Yesterday, she assisted at the tax of a heart from a three-year-old. Chin carried the child’s heart to a bowl of ice. She paused at the cooler. As Chin held the heart, the warmth spread through her hands. Finally, she placed it in the ice, and steam rose, as if it was one last gasp of the child.

Last night, she joined a nurse for a drink. The nurse, Ellie, was a five-year veteran of Cardio-Pulmonary. Over a glass of wine, Chin opened up and asked her how she handled it. Ellie had assisted in hundreds of major organ donations.

“This was my first one,” Chin explained.

“If you have a problem with it, why’d you pick this as your area?” Ellie asked.

Jules swirled her wine, “I have a heart problem—a pacemaker. So I’m interested in it.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I had a virus as a teenager, and it settled in my heart. Caused an interruption in the electrical impul—”

“No,” Ellie was perplexed, “I mean why have a pacemaker? Why not take the heart from your donor?”

Jules made a sound of disgust, “I just didn’t.”

Ellie took a drink of wine and shook her head, unable to understand. “Well, so today was your first assist at a heart tax? Your first one. Look, it gets easier. Just don’t think about it. Whatever you do, don’t keep count.”

Now, Chin stood next to Melnick as he ordered Joan to disrobe. Joan hesitated, looking at the trainer.

“Did you hear me?” Melnick said testily, “Take them off.”

Seeming to understand Joan’s unwillingness, Chin asked, “Is the trainer going to leave while she undresses?”

Melnick was annoyed.

“No,” he said flatly.

Joan got undressed and tried to cover herself with the paper gown. She set the rose on the exam table beside her. Dr. Melnick set his note pad on the table, bumping it against the rose.

“What’s this?” he asked, not caring, and he tossed the flower onto the floor in the corner.

For the rest of the afternoon, they trundled her from room to room, where she underwent a battery of tests with a multitude of machines. One machine was like a coffin, and she had lain motionless within, while a light beam passed repeatedly over her. Another had tubes hooked up to her chest and head, and all Joan had to do was lie comfortably on a bed for a while.

At one point she ran on a treadmill, while more wires dangled from her chest. Her leg throbbed again—pulsated. Sweat poured down her. She didn’t complain but kept running.

Joan’s mouth fell open when Garcia said at one point, “Let’s speed it up.”

Melnick nodded at the pink-haired nurse, who pushed a button on the treadmill, increasing the speed. Chin hovered near one of the machines, but she stared with concern at Joan. “Dr. Melnick, I think we should give her a rest.”

He monitored her heart rate on a machine and said to Garcia, “Look, here.” He pointed to the readout. “Put it up another notch, nurse.”

Joan winced as the nurse increased the speed.

Soon, Chin said forcefully, “Doctor, I think we should end the test.”

The pink-haired nurse raised her eyebrows and looked at Chin with surprise and disbelief. Chin was standing up to Dr. Melnick. Melnick was Our Governor’s physician. It wasn’t a new resident’s place to correct a physician, let alone one of his status.

“That’s fine,” Melnick replied. “We have everything we need.”

As the treadmill came to a stop, Joan collapsed on the floor. Melnick and Garcia remained intent on the readout. Chin went to Joan’s aid.

“I’m fine,” Joan panted. She pulled herself up.

Melnick walked over to her. “Did you say you’re fine, 23? You’re quite strong, you know. You have the heart of a lion. Doesn’t she, Dean?”

Joan was taken aback. He couldn’t have known her last name was Lion. Indeed, he did not. Yet the coincidence unnerved her.

After the tests were completed and Joan dressed, she realized she didn’t have the rose. She went back into the first exam room. Chin stood there, looking at an x-ray. Joan hesitated.

Chin smiled at her, “Yes, is there something I can do for you?”

“I forgot something…it’s on the floor over there.”

“The flower?” Chin bent and picked it up. “It’s beautiful,” she commented, as she handed it to Joan.

Feeling confident, Joan mustered up the courage to ask her, “How did I do on the tests?”

Chin gritted her teeth, “Very good.”

“So I don’t have anything to worry about?” Joan said with optimism.

Chin averted her eyes from Joan’s. Looking at the flower, she said, “A present from someone?”

Joan blushed, “It’s from a…friend.”

Chin watched Joan leave the room, grief evident in her eyes. After the tests, she had seen what Melnick wrote in the girl’s chart. He scribbled his recommendation for a heart and lung transplant and placed the chart in an envelope. Then he looked intently at his watch for a moment, as a doctor does when noting a patient’s time of death. When he sealed the envelope, he sealed Joan’s fate, too.

A minute later, Ellie walked into the room.

Chin looked at the nurse reproachfully, “I’m supposed to just forget about it? Don’t keep count? Really?!”

9

J
oan smelled the rose, oblivious to Chin’s discontent, as she walked down the hallway to the stairwell. On a whim she decided to take the power lift, and she walked into one as it was closing, along with a crowd. After a few minutes of stops with people getting on and off, she realized the power lift was going up. She exited at the next floor. Back to the safety of the stairs, Joan laughed to herself. She strolled, concentrating on the rose, when she realized the stairs were not where they should have been. This floor was laid out differently than the others. She wasn’t sure which way to go.