by Jessica Dall
She swallowed. “It’s not up to me to try to judge morals. It’s not my place. It’s not my job.”
“It’s everybody’s place. You don’t just have to follow along with what everyone says.”
“We were tested, scanned, placed where we’re meant to be. Assigned to what we’re best at,” Dahlia insisted. “I’m good at healing people. I have no aptitude for philosophizing.”
“Will you shut up and think for once, Lia?” he snapped, caught himself and lowered his voice. “Maybe they don’t have all the answers, Lia. You really think this is the best system out there?”
“Maybe not,” she allowed, “but it’s better than the alternative.”
“Which is?”
Dahlia frowned. “What?”
“What is the alternative?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “War? Famine?”
“We’re doing this,” Ben said. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll all be mowed down before we reach the gate. If we somehow make it, I want to know you’ll be behind us.”
“What makes you think I would even consider that?”
“I have no right to ask you for anything,” he said. “We need help. I... I have no one else to ask.”
Her jaw worked as she considered his words before speaking. “I’m sorry, Ben. I can’t have anything to do with this.”
“Lia—”
“If you’re smart, you’ll go home and forget this whole crazy idea.”
“You know that isn’t going to happen,” he said.
She looked at him for a long moment before moving towards the window. “I’m sending you home. You can’t come here anymore.”
“After tomorrow I won’t be able to.”
Her hand hovered over the pad on the wall. She didn’t touch it, turning her body just enough to see him. “You’re serious.”
“Tomorrow night I’ll either be free or I’ll be dead. Either way I won’t be here.”
She took a long breath. “Go home and sleep this off, Ben. You don’t want to do this.”
“Believe me, I do.”
She still didn’t move.
“So, either you turn me in right now or, as you’ve said, you’re just as responsible for whatever happens as I am.”
“Oh believe me, I’m tempted to turn you in,” Dahlia said. “If only to protect you from yourself.”
“I’m a grown man,” he said. “I don’t need a woman to think rationally for me. I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“Fine then.” She looked at him, eyes hard. “If you find out there’s an afterlife, see if you can find a way to let me know. I’ve always sort of wondered.”
His jaw twitched, but otherwise he remained stoic. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.
She sucked in a pained breath, paused, and then pulled her shoulders back stiffly. “No problem. I was just reading.”
“Something interesting, I hope,” he said so tersely it bordered on bitter.
“Interesting enough.” Her hand finally touched the pad.
An uncomfortable silence fell between them. He looked at her. She studied the wall.
“Dahlia,” he said at last.
She turned her head just enough to see him out of the corner of her eye.
He studied her face for a moment and then shook his head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t move for a long moment before giving a short nod and walking to the bathroom. She paused. “They should be here soon. You can let yourself out.”
* * * *
The next morning, Dahlia released a heavy breath as the chimes started at eight giving her a grand total of three hours of sleep. It hadn’t been more than an hour before sunrise when she had given up trying to sleep and had knocked herself out with a mild sedative. She was sure she looked awful, but all the same, she got out of bed hoping enough makeup work make her look more awake. It only succeeded in making her look a bit drained. With a long sigh, she picked up her bag.
Cassandra approached as she headed to work. “How was your night at home?”
She hadn’t even made it across the street.
“I slept horribly,” Dahlia said.
“See? You should have come out last night.”
“What’s the logic in that?”
“If you had come out, you would have worn yourself out and would have slept better.”
Dahlia gave her a slight smile. “Ah, maybe so.”
“Completely so.” Cassandra looked pleased.
Dahlia’s nose crinkled as something implacably arid and sharp hit it. She frowned. “Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” Cassandra looked puzzled.
Dahlia inhaled deeply, trying to place the smell. “That. It almost smells like a fireplace.”
Cassandra inhaled and scanned the sky. “I don’t see any smoke. There are no sirens. Maybe there’s a controlled burn somewhere?”
“Maybe.”
* * * *
In her office, Dahlia woke with a start, almost falling off the stool on which she sat. Zoë paused in the doorway.
“Were you asleep?”
“Apparently.” Dahlia rubbed her eyes. “Didn’t sleep well last night.”
“That’s too bad.”
She nodded. “What do you need?”
“Something weird is happening outside,” Zoë said
“Weird?” Dahlia frowned.
“Yeah, I came to get you to see it.”
“What’s going on?”
“Come on.” Zoë motioned for her to follow.
Everyone in the hospital who had the ability to move under their own power seemed to have the same idea. Onlookers packed every window with the light only getting through every once in a while above the heads of the shorter window viewers. Those without a perch streamed towards the doorways, forcing them back.
Dahlia let Zoë lead her through the slowly moving crowd. Zoë caught her arm as they made it to the front door and pulled her through onto the street.
Cassandra spotted them, motioning them to where she stood and pointed. “You might have been right about the smoke.”
“A fire?” Dahlia scanned the horizon.
“More than that,” Cassandra said.
Dahlia spotted it. In the distance there was not one cloud of smoke but several columns of brown-black smoke spaced out along the horizon as if something was containing the fire—fires—making smoke columns.
“What do you think it is?” someone in the crowd asked nobody in particular.
Nobody answered.
“Have you seen Audrey?” Zoë glanced away from the smoke pillars to look at Cassandra.
“She’s with a sick White, I think.” Cassandra stared at them and frowned. She studied Dahlia. “You have creases on your face.”
Dahlia rubbed her forehead blindly. “Yeah, I fell asleep at my desk.”
“You should go home.”
“I think bigger things are happening than me dealing with insomnia.” She looked at the smoke as it slowly lost its column and mushroomed to join the other columns making the sky vaguely yellow.
Sirens started somewhere down the hill, and the rescue squad stopped as close as it could get before the crowds became too thick to maneuver through. A woman in red swung out the door of the truck with a megaphone.
“Everyone, attention please. If everyone could please clear the street. There has been a gas line break off in the forest, which is feeding the fires outside of town. We need to get emergency services out there. Please clear the street.”
“There’s another one.” A woman standing at one of the hospital windows called, pointing further along the horizon.
“Please,” the woman with the megaphone pleaded. “We need to clear the way. Please move off the street.”
The other women in red started to herd the crowd into the surrounding buildings.
“How can there be that many line breaks?” Cassandra looked over her shoulder at the worker who was slowly moving the
crowd toward the hospital.
“Seismic activity,” the worker answered.
Zoë frowned. “I didn’t feel a quake.”
“Small one. Epicenter was closer to the pipeline than here.”
“Won’t the gas explode?” another woman asked.
“There’s no pressure building up. We just need to stop it from setting the entire forest on fire.”
Slowly the crowd disbursed, shuffling and jostling back to work. Dahlia moved away from the crowd, taking a deep breath before finding a less crowded window on the right side of the building. The smoke was still rising, and the sky looked more and more jaundiced as it continued. They weren’t going to have those under control any time soon.
Chapter Nine
By the time Dahlia and her friends got off work the air felt thick to move through. Though it appeared the fires had been put out at last, the wind had blown towards town and left the smoke hanging in the air. Dahlia pulled her shirt over her mouth to make breathing easier, allowing Cassandra to lead her to the trolley and then to the villa across from Dahlia’s. Cassandra swiped herself into the similarly generic room in which she lived, dropping her bag by the door and turning on the television without a pause.
“You think they’re covering the fires?” she said.
“I think they would qualify that as news.” Dahlia sat on the end of Cassandra’s bed.
“Do you believe the seismic activity story? I didn’t feel anything.”
“I don’t think there was one.” She shook her head. “I called the geology people. As of eleven, no earthquake reading. Five hours later however...”
Cassandra just frowned at her.
“They lied to us,” Dahlia said. “Eleven hundred—government says there is an earthquake, anyone with a seismograph says differently. Sixteen hundred—completely different story. All of a sudden a supposed small quake was graphed at nine thirty off the edge of town.”
“So, what?” Cassandra frowned at her. “There’s some vast government conspiracy happening?”
“They’re not telling us something. Gas doesn’t generally cause smoke when it burns.”
“Well, it was surrounded by trees...”
“Then how would the columns have been so contained? There was wind today. It would have spread. Towards town more than likely since it’s where the smoke’s settled. Something was acting as a firebreak. Several things were acting as firebreaks.”
Cassandra studied her. “So, what was happening then?”
Pausing, Dahlia deciding to lie, “I don’t know, but whatever it is, someone’s trying to cover it up.”
* * * *
Dahlia’s eyes blinked open for a reason she couldn’t place. Everything seemed quiet in her room. She blinked, confused, only catching a glance of a shadow before a hand was over her mouth. A scream died in her throat.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” a distinctly female voice whispered. “Just stay quiet and I’ll explain. Nod if you understand.”
Dahlia nodded stiffly, her shoulders still too tense to allow much movement. The hand lifted. She reached for the lights.
“Don’t.” Something clicked in the darkness sounding oddly ominous.
Dahlia froze without knowing why, slowing pulling her hand back to her chest. “Who are you?”
“Heather,” the voice answered. “They sent me to find you.”
She frowned. “Who sent you to find me?”
“Ben,” Heather said. “Well, technically Jude, but I don’t think you know him so that would mean less to you. Anyway, it would have been Ben if he weren’t still sulking.”
Dahlia released a breath. “I already told Ben I don’t want anything to do with this. I don’t know how you got in here, but I think you should—”
“They’re going to be dead in twenty-four hours if you don’t help,” Heather cut her off. “Ben’s going to be dead if you don’t help.”
Dahlia paused, focusing on the shadow in the dark room. “Is he hurt?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why do you think—?”
“He’s being held captive,” Heather interjected.
“That’s what the camps are for, aren’t they? To hold men captive?”
“Well, the men there don’t have death sentences hanging over their heads for the most part.”
“Death sentences?” She frowned. “Capital punishment hasn’t been used since—”
“They took out the last batch of useless men a couple weeks ago,” Heather said. “Though I suppose that isn’t punishment so to speak since they didn’t do anything wrong. It’s more like being put down. Having an incurable communicable disease isn’t exactly a crime.”
Dahlia didn’t answer.
“It’s up to you,” Heather continued after a beat. “They need a doctor and you’re the only one they could think of asking. You don’t have to come, but they’ll be dead within a day if you don’t.”
Dahlia remained silent for another moment. “Why do they need a doctor?”
“They need their chips out. With those in, everyone’s going to be tracked down before they get out of town.”
“They’d need a surgeon.” Dahlia shook her head. “I haven’t done anything like surgery since med school. Then, trying to pull them out from right under their clavicles? I’d give it a twenty percent chance of success.”
“A twenty percent chance of living is better than zero.”
She released a tense breath. “I don’t even know you. Why should I trust you?”
“Same reason I’m trusting you.” Heather didn’t hesitate. “I don’t want them to die, and you’re my only chance to save them. I’m yours.”
“Who are you?”
“Heather.”
“No, who...?” She sighed and gave up before completing the question. “How did you get in here?”
“I had a key,” Heather said. “It’s how we get men in and out of the building.”
Dahlia paused. “You’re a lesbian?”
“Don’t hold it against me.”
“So, what’s in this for you?”
“The same thing as the men,” Heather said. “Same thing as you, really. Freedom.”
“Freedom,” Dahlia repeated. “That word’s been thrown around a lot lately.”
The woman hesitated. “Ben didn’t want us to come to you, if it makes any difference. He said that you had made your choice. That you didn’t want to be involved. He would have just taken his chances rather than have us come ask you for help.”
Dahlia released a deep breath, leaning towards the pad. She paused. “Can I turn on the lights yet? I need to get my bag if I’m going to help anyone, and it would be very hard to find it in the dark.”
She could hear the smile in Heather’s voice. “You’re coming then?”
“I suppose I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Dahlia frowned at the woman. “The light?”
“Go ahead.”
She pressed the pad, turning on the light, blinking as her eyes adjusted. A dark-haired woman studied her carefully. Something black in Heather’s right hand dropped to her side.
Dahlia climbed out of bed moving to her bag by the door. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“That thing you’re holding.”
“Oh.” Heather looked at her right hand, slipping the black thing away into something at her waist. “It’s a gun. You know, just in case.”
“Gun,” Dahlia repeated, trying to place the word.
“It’s...” Heather stopped. “I’ll explain later. Can we go?”
Dahlia stood, frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
Dahlia set the bag down on her bed. “A bunch of things were missing this morning... I forgot to bring anything home with me. I don’t have nearly enough to try to perform surgery.”
“We’re out of luck then?” Disappointment filled the woman’s face.
She shook her head. “I’d just need to go to the hospital to get some
things.”
“Let’s do it then.” Heather moved to the door.
“It’s not like I can just walk in there this time of night... and everyone’s still partying downtown more than likely.”
“I can get you there if you can get in,” Heather said.
Dahlia frowned. “How?”
“Same way I got here.”
“How was that?”
Heather smiled and motioned for Dahlia to follow.
“Can I get dressed first?”
Heather sighed. “Fine, but be quick about it.”
Dahlia changed without a second thought about Heather being in the room, grabbing the first green sweater she came across and some jeans. She hesitated. “I take it we will be walking a lot.”
“Probably.” Heather nodded.
“Okay.” She pulled on some comfortable shoes and grabbed her coat. “Let’s do this before I come to my senses.”
Heather nodded, motioning for her to follow. Dahlia moved as quietly as possible, doing her best to feel as comfortable moving in the halls as she had been earlier that day. The woman went toward one of the doors at the end of the hall, a storage closet, Dahlia had always thought, and pulled a small silver key off her belt. With a quick turn, Heather had the door open, ushering Dahlia in before shutting and locking the door behind them.
It was pitch black for a moment before Heather found the light switch. Dahlia frowned at the strangely orange light, but looked at the room. It was not much bigger than a closet, nothing but a set of stairs against the far wall leading down to a floor she didn’t know the building had. None of the villas had basements. Heather went first, walking downstairs with practiced ease. Dahlia moved with far less skill, wavering on the thin, narrow steps without a railing. The stone was dark and vaguely orange from the strange lights. The air smelled damp and dripping sounds echoed from somewhere down the tunnel that extended from where the stairs leveled off. Dahlia couldn’t see any exit. The tunnel appeared to curve, leaving them in a small, grey, rather claustrophobic space.
Dahlia slipped on her coat to fight the cold in the tunnel. “Where are we?”
“Under the villa,” Heather said. “There are tunnels all under the city.”
They passed the dripping sound and Dahlia saw a wet spot on the ceiling leaking into the tunnel to form a small puddle.