The Bleeding Crowd (3 page)

“It’s new,” he said at last, looking at the
matted grey-collared shirt he wore. “A little too... button down...
for my tastes, but...”

She surveyed him again. “Used to different
types of apparel?”

“Why do I feel like you’re imagining
loincloths?”

“Maybe because you wish I’d want to see you
in a loincloth?” she quipped before pursing her lips. “I was just
wondering what you’d prefer to wear.”

“Nothing out of the Stone Age, but I’m sure
you’d still find it archaic with your modern clothing
standards.”

“Well, most of your systems are archaic,”
Dahlia returned. “It’s not surprising.”

“At least we remember what happened before
your bright, shiny year zero.”

“We would pay attention to all that if
anything of importance had happened pro pacis.”

“You mean like the assassination of Thomas
Dumas?”

Dahlia paused a moment. Her damn curiosity
demanded an answer. “Who?”

“Thomas Dumas.” Ben leaned back against the
desk puffing his chest out in an almost aggressive posture. “You
know, the guy who kicked all this off? They didn’t teach you that
in history?”

Dahlia pressed her lips together. “No offense
intended, but I don’t think I need a history lesson, especially not
from you.”

“Yeah, no offense to be had there.” Ben
rolled his eyes, leaning back against the desk. “At least I’m not
the product of that propaganda machine parading itself as an
educational system that churned you out.”

“Yeah?” Dahlia crossed her arms over her
breasts. “Just what school did you go to, pray tell?”

“We may not have a school at the camps, but
we have our own oral history.”

“Oh, so you’re relying on a game of telephone
that’s been played over three-hundred years for your information.
That sounds reliable.”

“Any less reliable than a history taught in a
government-run school that has a vested interest in indoctrinating
all its students with values that will keep it in power?”

“You have something against the government?”
She raised an eyebrow.

“I have something against being treated like
a second-class citizen because I was unfortunate enough to be born
with a penis.”

“Well, that’s just a symptom,” Dahlia said,
matter-of-fact. “I think the main problem is the mutation that gave
you that and whatever other problems go along with it. That poor
mutated Y chromosome is what gives you all those symptoms.”

“You realize without that ‘mutation’ you
wouldn’t be here, right?” Ben looked her over. “You have a father
somewhere.”

“I’m sure the pedigree office has recorded
it,” Dahlia said. “Though all of that mess might not be necessary
in the near future. Early studies have shown that it’s possible to
merge two eggs, rather than a sperm and an egg, so that they have
the necessary forty-six chromosomes, and no Y chromosome to speak
of.”

“So then, what would you do with men when you
have masturbation and pseudo-cloning?”

“Men would be obsolete,” she said, “which I
suppose they are pretty much now for the most part, but I’d imagine
we’d just leave you in your camps. With children being produced
from two ova, there’s no possible hereditary passing of the
so-called ‘Y’ chromosome at all, so baring spontaneous mutation
there will be no male children. Wouldn’t be many of you after long
enough.”

“So you have it all figured out then,” Ben
said.

“Assuming the women in genetics do their
job.” Dahlia shrugged off his response. “Like I said, I find this
whole mating ritual thing archaic. It’s bordering on unnecessary as
it is. Do you think it’s been long enough that I can sign off for
the night and go to sleep?”

“You seriously have me here, and would rather
sleep?”

“You think you’re too good to pass up?”

“I find it hard to believe someone would want
to pleasure themselves when they have other means.”

“I’ve always been self-sufficient,” Dahlia
said. “All of my aptitude tests said so. I have work tomorrow. I’m
going to bed now.”

Ben looked around. “So what do you want
me
to do?”

She shrugged, sliding up the bed and
straightening her nightshirt. “I would suggest sleeping,
personally.”

He frowned at her. “You are so strange.”

“If you say so.” She switched off the light
and turned away from him.

Chapter Two

Like clockwork, Dahlia walked into the café
less than a block down the road from the hospital at 13:30.
Cassandra waved her over to a small round table near the window
before she had the time to smile at the woman in saffron at the
hostess stand. The café had been a long-standing favorite haunt for
hospital employees on their lunch break. The bright airy café, even
if it was done mostly in white and pastels like the hospital,
lacked the harsh antiseptic smell of their work place. Instead, it
offered the smell of cooking meat and the baking pastries for which
the café was famous. Dahlia smiled and slipped past the small
waiting area into the last chair available at the glass-topped
table. Cassandra, two other women in Emerald Green, one in Cyan,
and one in Fuchsia smiled at her.

Audrey, the first girl in Emerald, looked her
over. “You look good in green.”

“I don’t know.” Dahlia pursed her lips,
studying her shirt. “I was a fan of cyan. It brought out my
eyes.”

“Green is good for your complexion.” Zoë,
Audrey’s twin, also in green, nodded.

Claire, the hospital librarian in Fuchsia,
nodded, examining her. “I like it. How was last night?”

Dahlia’s good-natured smile dropped. “I’d
rather not talk about it.”

“That bad?” Georgia, the group's now sole
nineteen-year-old, looked apprehensive.

“Well, nothing happened.” Dahlia shook her
head, taking a glass of water another saffron-dressed server handed
her. “I was tired. I went to sleep.”

Cassandra frowned. “Nothing happened.
Lia—”

“No, I understand,” Zoë said. “I’m so tired
after work most the time I call mine up from camp maybe once a
month.”

“But on the night of your twentieth?”
Cassandra shook her head. “That’s just depressing.”

“I don’t know.” Claire shrugged. “I still
fail to see the need of men to begin with.”

“Thank you,” Dahlia said. “I was beginning to
think I was the only one who understood the futility of the entire
exercise.”

“Okay.” Zoë held up her hand. “Time to stop
debate. It’s not exactly proper lunchtime conversation.”

Cassandra sighed theatrically. “Fine. So,
Lia, what’s going on in your life of being a gardener?

Dahlia sent her a look. “Watch it. I bet I
could find something deadly and untraceable to slip into your drink
there.”

“Yesh.” Cassandra smiled. “One day with a man
and you’re already thinking murder. There should be a test to weed
out the easily corruptible.”

Dahlia stared at Cassandra for a long moment
before changing the topic. “If you’re truly interested, we’ve found
a plant that appears to be a powerful contraceptive. If it works
throughout testing, it means we can take out the chemical version
we mix into the water.”

Georgia smiled. “Side effects?”

“We’re really going to talk about
contraceptives?” Cassandra looked between the two women.

“Still in testing,” Dahlia responded to
Georgia. “Doesn’t seem to have any thus far. Even less than the
ones the one we have now. Also it seems to last for about a month,
so it wouldn’t be necessary to constantly pump it into our systems.
I’ve actually used myself as a test subject.”

“Seriously?” Georgia raised her eyebrows.

“Well, the only thing we really have left to
test is if it makes you sterile, and I really don’t give a crap
about that either way.”

“What if you get maternal urges?” Claire
asked.

“I’ll funnel them into gardening,” Dahlia
said sarcastically. “Anyway, if Genetics starts pulling their
weight, we won’t need birth control ever again. There’ll be no need
for contraceptive with in vitro. Honestly we’re just killing time
until Genetics makes the study obsolete.”

“At least it isn’t your entire
specialization,” Cassandra mumbled.

Dahlia grinned. “Let it go, Cass.”

“I don’t know,” Audrey said. “I don’t think
I’d like a world without men... I mean, I’m really glad they aren’t
out here mucking about, don’t get me wrong, but unlike the rest of
you freaks, I actually like sex.”

“Don’t group me in with them.” Cassandra
pointed across the table.

“Oh, just get a vibrator.” Claire rolled her
eyes.

“Without men,” Dahlia cut off Cassandra’s
retort, “it would free up the lesbians to do other things than work
at the camps. Maybe all you girls who still want company for your
recreational hours will just be able to switch your amorous
intentions to the other team.”

Audrey’s nose crinkled. “The lesbians?
They’re just about as good as men. Why would I ever want to try to
become one?”

“Well, without men...” Dahlia smiled behind
her water glass. “Personally I’m more than good with taking care of
myself.”

“Agreed,” Claire said

“All of you are freaks.” Cassandra shook her
head. “Why do something yourself when you can have someone take
care of it for you?”

“Why not just make men full-fledged servants
then?” Dahlia looked at her.

“And have them fight each other in the halls
of our villas?” Audrey took over with a frown. “No thank you. It’s
better not to let them see each other except in the camps where
they can’t do any real damage. It’s why we leave them there after
all.”

* * * *

That evening, Dahlia stood just outside her
room, enjoying the last rays of sunset coming over the villa wall
before finally pressing her keycard to her door. She stepped
inside, pausing on the threshold. She looked at the man sitting on
the edge of her bed for a moment before turning to shut the door.
“Any reason you’re still here?”

“You didn’t send me back this morning.” Ben
didn’t look up from the book in his lap. “That would be the main
reason.”

“Oh.” Dahlia set her bag down in the corner
by the door. “I didn’t know I had to do that.”

“Didn’t read the manual?” Ben turned the
page.

“I didn’t know you came with one,” she
snapped, pausing when he didn’t respond. Or look up. She sighed.
“What are you reading?”

He raised his head. “That’s cute. You think I
can read?”

She frowned. “You can’t?”

“Literacy isn’t one of the necessary skills
to learn at camp. I believe, according to your spokespeople, it’s
actually damaging to our—oh now, how did they put it—primitive
brains. Reading takes blood away from the small parts of the brain
we have that allow for impulse control. Let us read and who knows
what will happen.”

Dahlia nodded, not sure of the etiquette for
the situation. If there was any. “What are you looking at
then?”

He looked at her for a long moment and then
lifted the cover.

She moved a little closer, stooping to see
and then frowned. “I’m sure there must be nicer pictures to look at
than the ones in my old anatomy texts.”

“It’s interesting.” Ben shrugged. “Can’t say
I’ve ever seen inside a human... well, never this completely and
not without very, very different circumstances.”

She studied him for a long moment. “I’m not
sure I want to know.”

“Well.” Ben seemed to consider. “They try to
keep weapons out of the camps, but that’s not always possible.”

“Weapons?” Dahlia repeated.

“You know.” He shook his head. “Guns,
knives... shivs?”

She frowned. “I’m afraid I only got knife
from those. Shiv?”

“It’s a weapon made out of found
materials...” he started and then paused. “Come on now, you have to
know what a gun is. All the guards carry them.”

“Guards?” she repeated.

He looked at her as though he were attempting
to judge if she had some mental defect. “You have to know what a
guard is.”

“Yes, I know what a guard is,” Dahlia said,
over enunciating the words. “I was questioning
what
guards.”

“The ones at the camps.”

“Oh, you mean the lesbians” she said. “Well,
I can’t say I’ve seen one of them, at least not after they’re
scanned and assigned, so I don’t happen to know what they carry at
the camps. Or anywhere else for that matter.”

“You seriously have never seen a gun
before.”

“I’ll assume so since I still have no idea
what you’re going on about.” Dahlia eyed him, suspicious.

“Weapons,” he stressed. “Things you use to
fight someone. Or protect yourself.”

“Protect yourself from what?”

He seemed to struggle for an answer. “Well,
other people who have weapons.”

“Sounds awful,” she said. “It’s
understandable how that would make someone weep.”

“No, not weep-on. Weapon. WEH, WEH-pon.
Doesn’t even have the same etymology as far as I know.”

“You know etymology?” She raised an
eyebrow.

He paused a moment. “I just know it means the
history of words. I think that’s the right word for what I
meant.”

“Yeah, it was. I was just surprised you knew
it.”

“Well, believe it or not, I have a pretty
well-versed vocabulary.”

“Apparently so,” she said. “Funny etymology
is on the list to teach you when reading isn’t on there at all,
though.”

He frowned. “We have our own verbal
histories. We don’t have to read a word to learn it.”

Dahlia waved her hand, shooing away the
comment. “So, you have these weep... weh-pons at the camp.”

“People manage to sneak them in every now and
again.”

Her nose crinkled. “Sounds awful. They teach
you how to hurt people, but not how to read?”

“Well, sweetheart...” Ben shut the book and
placed it next to him on the bed. “I don’t think you want us to
start learning anything else. Your whole society is sort of based
on making us seem as animalistic as possible. You’d think if you
didn’t dehumanize us, one or two of you might have a little more
compassion for our plight.”