The Bleeding Crowd

by Jessica Dall

She hummed an affirmation, setting down the tablet and thermometer. She picked up the blood pressure cuff. “Arm out.”

  He didn’t question it, letting her put it on. He flexed his hand. “That’s tight.”

  “It’s supposed to be,” she said. “Hold still.”

  “My hand is supposed to go numb?”

  “Stop being a baby.” She placed the stethoscope on his arm and then released the pressure slowly, before completely. “I know girls still in White who whine less about blood pressure tests.”

  “What’s blood pressure?”

  “The pressure your blood puts on your arteries when it’s pumped around your body.” She wrote something down on the pad.

  “Is it important?”

  “If it’s too low you can faint, too high and you’re more likely to have a heart attack or stroke.”

  “Is mine good?”

  “120 over 68.”

  He raised an eyebrow, pulling his arm back to his side. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  “It means you aren’t dying.”

  “That’s good, I suppose.”

  “Exercise a lot?”

  “Enough.” He shrugged.

  She offered a quick smile, placing her middle and ring finger on the inside of his wrist, watching the clock for a little while before typing something again. “Are you nervous?”

  “What?” He frowned.

  “Your heart rate seems higher than it should be. I know you haven’t been exercising, and you don’t seem sick, so it would generally mean stress.”

  “Not especially.”

  She hummed, moving her hands to either side of his neck. “Any tenderness?”

  “No.”

  “You tensed.”

  “Well, it’s my general reaction when people go for my neck.”

  “Say ‘ah’.”

  He did, watching as she wrote something down. “Something wrong?”

  “Little redness at the back of the throat. Doesn’t seem to be anything important, but it might be the start of a cold.”

  “They tested me before I came here. I’m not sick.”

  “Not yet I know and maybe not at all. Your immune system’s doing what it should since your glands are slightly swollen. That’s the problem with relying on blood tests. The body tells you a lot more than tests do in my opinion. In any case, you’re the picture of health. The fact that your body is fighting off whatever’s in there is a good thing. It means you don’t have any autoimmune diseases, you know, AIDS, Behçet’s—”

  “You know I don’t have AIDS.” He showed her his wrist.

  Dahlia glanced at it with a frown. “You wouldn’t have been burned if you had had AIDS?”

  “No.” He rubbed his wrist self-consciously. “I would have a medical tattoo. Any communicable disease makes you ineligible for the lottery. So they mark you or you’re removed.”

  “Removed?”

  “Quarantine, I suppose they call it,” Ben said. “They’re moved to some place they can’t spread the disease and we never see them again.”

  “Well, quarantines are good,” Dahlia said. “You don’t all want to get sick.”

  “You gas diseased livestock, after all, before they can infect the entire herd.”

  Dahlia frowned. “I don’t think anyone is ‘gassed’.”

  He shrugged.

  She looked at his wrist. “So, no tattoo means an overall clean bill of health. At least for chronic and genetic diseases.”

  He nodded.

  She pulled his shirt up to place her stethoscope on his chest.

  “Cold,” he hissed.

  “Sorry.” She listened for a second. “Deep breath.”

  He did as he was told.

  She nodded, moving the head around to his back. “Again.”

  He repeated the drawn out breathing.

  “Perfectly healthy as far as I can tell.” She pulled back at last. “Any sight problems? Color blindness? Nearsightedness? Farsightedness?”

  “I see colors,” he said. “Don’t know what the rest are.”

  “Do you have problems seeing far away or up close?”

  He shook his head. “Do you have problems seeing?”

  “I did once,” she said. “I had it corrected though.”

  “Can’t say I have any problems.”

  She nodded and put her things back in her bag. She turned around, an uncomfortable silence falling between them.

  Dahlia sucked on her teeth, the sound too loud in the quiet room. “Well, you’re very good at conversation you know—for a man.”

  “I do handle consecutive thoughts well.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a slight,” she apologized.

  Silence fell again.

  She shifted, feeling awkward. “Would you like me to send you home?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re asking me?”

  “Would you prefer for me to act unilaterally? I mean they say men can’t make decisions, but I thought I’d offer in case you wanted—”

  “No.” He held up a hand. “It’s just, last night it seemed like you couldn’t wait to be rid of me.”

  “That’s because I’m less than in favor of institutionalized mating. I don’t need the government telling me when to have sex.”

  “Do you not like...? Well, I’m going to assume you’re a virgin since you just turned twenty, but—”

  “It’s the principle of the thing,” she insisted. “I’ve made it this far in life without men, I think I could continue to do so. I don’t especially have any aspirations towards motherhood, and I probably never will in all honesty. So overall, since I don’t want to breed and I don’t want to have sex with you, you’re basically, I don’t know, a pet? I can’t speak for everyone else, but I don’t feel the need to keep humans as pets.”

  “A pet,” he said, considering. “That’s a new one.”

  “I’m sorry, that wasn’t meant to be disparaging. I just don’t know what else I’d call this sort of arrangement.”

  He shrugged.

  Dahlia sighed. “So would you like me to send you back or not?”

  “With my other option being sleeping on the floor?”

  She said nothing.

  “Well, I have a bed back at camp so I think I’d prefer that set up if I have a choice.”

  Dahlia nodded, moving to her desk. She sat in the chair and felt under the edge of the wood desk for a switch. A space on the wall behind the desk glowed.

  “There are screens everywhere, aren’t there?” Ben studied it.

  “Pretty much,” Dahlia said, hitting a button and the screen changed. She looked at him. “How far away is the camp?”

  “I don’t know in miles—sorry, kilometers—but they drive us here and it takes probably twenty, thirty minutes.”

  “Well, it’s only 18:00. You should be home before dark. Or not too long after, depending...” She paused. “Have you eaten anything today?”

  “You had some toast and stuff on a plate earlier,” he said.

  “You ate my leftovers?” Dahlia frowned and didn’t wait for an answer. “You must be starving.”

  “I’ve gone longer with less.” He shrugged.

  She looked him over. “You don’t look malnourished.”

  “I’m not,” he said. “People have forgotten to feed me before. It’s not all the time.”

  “I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t think of it. Then again, I suppose you can’t exactly leave to get something or call for food for that matter.”

  He shrugged.

  She moved to the pad on the wall. “I’ll have something delivered for dinner before you go.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said.

  “It’s okay. I need dinner anyway. I don’t have a whole lot to eat here.”

  Ben just nodded.

  “If I’m ever scatterbrained again...” She opened the storage space in her headboard. “I tend to have some food in here. Feel free to help yourself if there’s nothing else ar
ound.”

  “What?” He frowned.

  “Well, I figure I’m stuck with you for at least three weeks. I’ll have to call you back here at some point to avoid questions. There’s food in here for when you’re around.” She crossed her arms at the lack of understanding on his face. “You don’t need me to put it in a dish with your name on it, do you? I figure since you have opposable thumbs and all you’d be capable of—”

  “Thanks,” he interjected.

  She nodded.

  They stared at each other.

  “So...” she started.

  “You’re really very pretty,” he said. “You know, when you aren’t scowling.”

  “Thank you.” She frowned, unsettled. “I like to think that I’m not completely unfortunate looking.”

  “Well, I can’t say I have extensive knowledge of women’s features, but from what I’ve seen I’d say you’re definitely above average. Pretty.”

  “Well, we try to make everything aesthetically pleasing, ourselves included.” Dahlia shrugged. “If you’ve been chosen multiple times, you’re obviously not hideous.”

  “Or I’m just the least hideous of the groups I’m in.” He smiled.

  She considered that. “It’s a little degrading, isn’t it? Being paraded up and down so people can judge you on your appearance?”

  “I’m not sure you care about degrading us,” he said. “You collective, not you personally.”

  She nodded slowly. “I would hate standing there, being judged like that. It would probably be a little ego busting too.”

  “Well, I don’t think you’d have to worry about not being picked on at least every once in a while. Everyone has different tastes, but—”

  “You don’t get to choose,” Dahlia said. “You’re just handed over to whoever wants you.”

  “We get used to it.” Ben shrugged, jaw tight but otherwise stoic.

  “Is... is it hard to have sex with someone you aren’t attracted to?”

  “Well.” He considered. “I haven’t been unfortunate enough to get chosen by someone I found repulsive. Even if they aren’t the most attractive of people, you get by.”

  She nodded. “I feel like there should be a study done. There’s got to be something that would make this whole system function better.”

  Ben studied her for a long moment. “So conduct a study.”

  “That’s really more a job for a sociologist, a political scientist maybe, not a physician.”

  He shrugged.

  “You do that a lot.”

  Ben frowned. “Do what?”

  “Shrug like that,” she said. “Do you simply have no opinion, or do you have an opinion and just not want to share it?”

  He smiled. “Maybe a little of both.”

  “Probably smart,” she continued, almost to herself. “‘Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.’”

  “Abraham Lincoln,” Ben said.

  Dahlia frowned. “Who?”

  “Abraham Lincoln,” Ben repeated. “That’s his quote.”

  “Never heard of him. It’s in Patience’s Book of Quotes.”

  “Oh, right.” Ben rolled his eyes “Your great leader. Well, Lincoln’s older, so she took that from him. Though, speaking of ages, how old is grand ole Patience supposed to be now. 350? 375? I would have thought someone would have looked into her secret of living almost four times the normal lifespan of a woman, but then again, she’s really sort of figure-head, so I suppose it really doesn’t matter.”

  A knock on the door to the hall inside the villa saved Dahlia from having to respond.

  “Food,” she said in a crisp voice. “You can have a seat. I generally eat on my bed when I’m here anyway.”

  Chapter Three

  Dahlia studied a sample under the microscope, didn’t bother to look up. “Yes?”

  “You aren’t leaving for lunch?” Cassandra stood in the doorway.

  “I’m behind.” Dahlia sighed, pushing back from the desk at last. “There’s some sort of allergic reaction occurring, but I can’t tell how serious it is from this sample. I don’t want to send it to trial if it’s going to send someone into anaphylactic shock. Want to look?”

  Cassandra shrugged, moving into the room. “I’m not sure I’m qualified.”

  Dahlia smiled. “Well, you could at least tell me it’s not cancer.”

  Her friend sent her a dark look before bending to look at the microscope. “It doesn’t look like too bad a reaction. Has that happened on all your samples?”

  “Ten percent,” Dahlia said. “Significant enough not to dismiss, not common enough to warrant stopping the trial.”

  “So why are you worried?”

  “It’s nice to know how dangerous something is before testing it.”

  Cassandra nodded. “Are you off this weekend?”

  “I have a couple clinic hours to finish up Friday night. Other than that, they’ve basically relieved me from OR duty.”

  “Lucky.”

  “Means they think I’m better at theory than application, I think.” Dahlia smiled.

  “I’d rather be in your position. I’m just stuck messing with people’s psyches and doing clinic hours. Like I’m a GP with some counseling skills.”

  “Should have picked a better specialization.” Dahlia slipped the slide into its holder.

  Cassandra rolled her eyes, moving to another stool in the room. “Heard you were late coming in today.”

  “Indeed I was,” Dahlia admitted.

  “Finally have a good night?”

  “If you mean a good night of sleep, yes, yes I did.”

  “Oh, Lia.” Cassandra frowned at her.

  “Can we please go one day without talking about this, Cass?”

  “You really should try it at least once.”

  “I know we used to talk about something before we turned twenty.” Dahlia rolled her eyes.

  “We mostly gossiped about the other girls then.”

  “Come on. We discussed some philosophy, world events...”

  “Yeah.” Cassandra nodded with a grin. “Claire’s problem with Mackenzie was so much more interesting than those most of the time.”

  “True.” Dahlia smiled, but the smile faded quickly as her eyebrows furrowed. “Have we seen Mackenzie lately?”

  “I think she’s on maternity leave,” Cassandra said.

  “Ah, she’s procreating.”

  Cassandra nodded. “You can check it out in the pedigree room. I think she’s due any day now. They’d likely have it up there by now. If it’s a girl, anyway.”

  “I’m sure she’ll let us know when she returns. If she doesn’t, it was a boy.”

  Cassandra didn’t argue.

  * * * *

  The authorities had built the camp in the middle of nowhere. Well, as close to the middle of nowhere as they could make it without sacrificing ease of transportation too much. Ben didn’t know what the natural landscape around the camps had once been, but it appeared they had carved out a space in the middle of a forest. Or maybe they had planted a forest around the camp so they blocked the view of the tall concrete walls until you were practically on top of them. It may have been to hinder escape efforts or that the stark grey walls weren’t aesthetically pleasing enough to be seen by the “new society.” It might insult the artistic sensibilities of women after all, but decoration would be wasted on a group of heathen men. They, of course, would be happy just to have shelter from the elements.

  The new government had built all the camps in haste right after the Dumas murder—or so their verbal history told them. They first filled them with the men in power, men who would fight the then insurgents. Once that was done, they opened more camps for the rest of the men and filled them until no one realized the difference. Until no one realized men had ever lived anywhere else.

  The brilliantly orchestrated takeover by a militant group claiming to support universal peace used the most non-militant, d
ocile woman as a figurehead for their cause. It had been simple enough for her to calm everyone and appear the victim when anyone tried to question the process. Nobody seemed to notice the change until enough people “disappeared” to make resistance futile.

  The first gate opened, admitting the car into the camp. The guards let Ben out, walking him into the imaging equipment used to detect anything metallic the men might be tempted to smuggle into the camps. Ben stood in the man-sized box without complaint, waited for the beep that showed he was clean, and moved through the final set of doors into the camp.

  Like the walls surrounding it, the camp was dreary to say the least. Men were something dangerous, something to be contained, but the women worried most about keeping them inside the walls. In the camp men were all but left to their own devices.

  Ben skirted the main yard and moved to his barrack near the far wall.

  Jude looked up from some homemade cards he appeared to be playing with. “Have a good time?”

  Ben shrugged, rolling his pant leg up so he could get to the inside pocket he had had sewn into all of his pants.

  Jude just waited, watching him pull out a sheet of paper and stick it under the mattress of his bunk situated on the far wall near the window.

  “Who’s winning?” Ben motioned with his head at the cards.

  Jude shrugged, not acknowledging the joke.

  Ben sat down. “So...”

  Jude glanced at the door, lowering his voice. “She anyone important?”

  Ben took a second to respond. “Doctor.”

  “Not that important then.” Jude looked back at the cards.

  “I don’t know,” Ben said. “She has a book filled with hundreds of plants and what they do. Some are poisonous. That could be helpful.”

  “She just left that sitting around?” His friend raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, as far as she knows I’m illiterate.”

  “Ah. Right.”

  “A pretend lack of knowledge is power.” Ben rested against the wall.

  “Dan ZD just got assigned to a politician of some sort.”

  “Anyone we need?” Ben asked.

  “All I know is it’s some forty-year-old who has a taste for younger men.”

  “Well, I got lucky there. Pretty twenty-year-old.”

  “Nice.” Jude didn’t look up from the cards.