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  Donor 23

  C A T E C A M P B E L L B E A T T Y

  Copyright © 2013 Cate Campbell Beatty

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1484933176

  ISBN 978-1484933176

  www.Donor23.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  For My Parents, Stephen and Ann Campbell

  My Husband, Dave

  Our Boys, Chris and Will

  And

  In Memory of My Brother, David

  Part I: DONOR 23

  Part II: EVADER

  Part III: JOAN

  Part IV: LIONHEART

  PROLOGUE

  The little girl yanked at the binds tied around her wrists. Two nurses stood over her. One held up a long, glistening needle attached to a tube snaking under the gurney. The girl wanted to lash out and kick the women, but nylon straps strangled her ankles against the metal rungs of the bed.

  As one nurse held the girl’s left arm steady, the one with the needle tightened an elastic band just above the girl’s elbow. Soon the veins in her arm bulged. With her fingers the nurse began pushing at a vein, coaxing it closer to the surface. The artery’s bluish-purplish tint contrasted against the girl’s lightly tanned skin. She lowered the needle to the skin.

  The girl squirmed.

  “Calm down,” the nurse uttered, annoyed.

  Just one hour ago, the nine-year-old had been playing a rousing game of kickball on her neighborhood streets. She hadn’t paid attention as the uniformed officers drove up and began checking the tattoos of the young girls in the area. When they scanned her tattoo, one officer announced, “This is her. It’s 23.”

  They pulled her toward their black van. She resisted them, kicking, hitting, and screaming.

  “Wait. NO!” she wailed. “My mom? Where’s my mom? MOM! DAD! NO!”

  The slam of the van’s thick door behind her stung her ears, and she stopped screaming. No sounds from the street could be heard inside the van, and the opposite was also true. After the bright sunlight, the darkness inside enveloped her. She plastered her tear-streaked face against the van’s blackened window and saw her friends on the street watch in horror as the van drove away.

  Now, she lay strapped hand and foot to the hospital gurney. The elastic band squeezed ever tighter on her arm. She felt as if her arm were a balloon, filling up with too much air, about to explode.

  “She gave a bloody lip to one of the officers,” chuckled the nurse with the needle.

  “It’s her first tax. And it’s an emergency surgery,” the second nurse murmured. She leaned closer to the young child, “Settle down, 23. It’s easier that way.”

  “I want my mom,” she cried. “My dad, please,” she begged. “What are you taking from me?”

  “It’s just a minor donation. You’ll be fine,” the second nurse tried to calm her, gently brushing the girl’s light brown hair off her forehead.

  But the girl didn’t relax. She wasn’t fine. With surprising strength for her age and size, she jerked her arm, stretching the nylon restraint band almost to its breaking point.

  The nurse with the needle angrily stepped back, “This is crazy. Our Governor’s daughter is waiting in the next room, and we’re fighting with this donor kid. Our Governor! I’m not getting fired over this. Or sent to some labor camp.”

  With vicious force both women pressed hard on the girl’s small shoulders, pinning her down and indenting the bolts of the gurney’s underlying metal frame into her back. The girl yelped in pain.

  A man dressed in surgical clothes stormed into the room.

  “Ready?” he demanded.

  “Oh, Dr. Melnick,” the second nurse said with apprehension. “Almost. Getting the anesthesia in. It’s her first tax. She’s fighting us.”

  “Hurry up. Her benefactor’s already prepped.”

  The doctor towered over the gurney, and the child froze under his stern gaze. Taking advantage of the momentary gap in the girl’s struggles, the nurse quickly inserted the needle. The little girl jerked at the prick. A quick slap of strong tape held the needle in place, pierced deeply into the girl’s vein. Her blue eyes opened wide, spellbound as the nurse squeezed at a bag hanging nearby full of a green liquid, forcing it into the tube.

  “A little fighter? That’ll have to change,” Dr. Melnick said impatiently, as he shook the tube to ensure it had no kinks to stop the lime-colored fluid from reaching its destination.

  The girl fixated on the green liquid, unable to take her eyes from it as it slithered leisurely down the tube, creeping closer toward the needle into her arm, closer to her vein, closer to her lifeblood. The nurse squeezed the bag again, to hurry the powerful narcotic along its way. The girl realized it was over.

  But like an animal in its last death throe, the girl’s strength welled up one final time, and she struggled violently, wrenching at the straps. The nurses didn’t care. They let her struggle. And the green slime reached the needle and flowed inside her.

  A coldness permeated her arm. Little by little, the freeze crept up the inside of her arm to her shoulder. The chill reached to her neck. A frostiness. Did they inject her with ice water? Her eyelids seemed heavy, and she fought to keep them open.

  As the child drifted off, in her last final bit of consciousness, the doctor’s voice echoed distantly in her ears. Like a judge issuing a life sentence in a simple way that made it all the more damning, Melnick uttered:

  “You’ll get used to it, 23.”

  PART I

  Donor 23

  1

  The tax left Joan with a three-inch scar running along the outside of her thigh. It glistened a deep reddish-pink, almost purple—a much deeper pink than her other, older scars. Joan knew over time it would fade. The surgery had been two months ago, and they removed part of her right femur musculature. As a donor Joan didn’t know the specifics of any operation. The doctors rarely bothered to inform them. Not that it mattered. There was nothing a donor could have done about it anyway. Joan knew that, and she accepted it. In fact, by now she was used to it.

  The seventeen-year-old girl leaned back on the massage table and tried not to grimace as the physical therapist stretched her leg.

  “You’re looser today,” he commented, “you regained a lot of your range of motion and strength already. You heal fast.”

  She shrugged and sat up, her shoulder-length, light-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  He rubbed deeply into her muscle, “You’ve been working hard since the tax.”

  Mankind had lost much science and technology a hundred years earlier, due to a random, wholly unexpected, and violent meeting between the Earth and an asteroid. But the wonders of current modern medicine, under the guidance of the Alliance, had discovered a way to craft full-organ transplant compatibility between two people through a transfusion of umbilical cord blood at or near birth.

  The Living Tissue Tax and Beneficiary System, called the System for short, forced—or, in the language of the law, taxed—a donor to give up any organ or body tissue to his or her personal benefactor. At seventeen, Joan was painfully aware of her place as a donor in the System.

  The physical therapist stepped away from Joan and looked out the large window of the enormous Fitness Center.


  “What’s the commotion out there?”

  Joan didn’t care and rubbed her thigh. She gently ran her finger along the fresh scar.

  “It’s Tegan Gates. Wonder what she’s doing here?”

  At the mention of Tegan’s name, Joan looked up. She shook out her leg and walked over to the window. Surrounded by cameras, Tegan walked from her limousine. Tegan was the daughter of the Governor and one of the top female athletes in the Alliance. Her boyfriend, Duncan Starr, who was also an athlete, accompanied her. Cameras flashed at the perfect couple—both of them vital, young seventeen-year-olds. Everything the two did splashed across front pages everywhere.

  “Our Governor!” the therapist continued with increased excitement in his voice upon seeing the Governor. “We’ll be on the news tonight!”

  He used the camera function on his wrist phone to take photos out the window. Joan gazed at Tegan in silence. Donors rarely knew the identity of their benefactors—one of the System’s unofficial rules. It worked better that way. But Joan knew Tegan was her benefactor. She had heard the nurses in the hospital talking during her first tax, when she was nine.

  Since that first tax, Joan had donated portions of different muscles and tendons on many occasions—two from her leg a couple months ago. Joan was always left with enough to make sure she could still exercise, stay in top physical shape, and donate. And on top of that, she had to endure the blood donations—too many to count.

  Joan followed Tegan’s career. She figured out the blood transfusions boosted Tegan’s energy before a competition. Shortly after one shoulder tax two years ago, Tegan won first place. She set a record for the javelin—a record still standing. Tegan’s best sporting event was the ultimate track and field event: the decapentathlon. It included not only every event of the decathlon, but much more, including archery, target shooting, and rock climbing.

  “She’s a great athlete. I’m sure she’ll make a great governor one day,” the physical therapist said with admiration.

  Tegan and Duncan waved to the crowd. Joan gazed, thoughtfully watching as Tegan draped her arm over Duncan’s shoulder. Then the two of them, the Governor, and their entourage made their way into the building and out of Joan’s view. The therapist turned away. Joan kept looking out the window.

  The therapist punched some information into his wrist phone, “I’m OKing you to return to full work outs.”

  Joan cringed. Her leg was definitely not ready for her full, regular workout regimen, but she wouldn’t contradict him.

  “You can head down to your trainer,” the therapist said and began picking up towels, straightening up the area. Joan continued standing at the window, staring at the last spot where she had seen Duncan.

  The therapist turned toward her and clapped his hands, “Don’t delay 23—get going. I just scripted him you were on your way.”

  Joan squinted as she walked out into the bright sun. She loved this place—the Fitness Center, the premier exercise facility in the Alliance. The Alliance worshipped physical prowess; ironically, however, most citizens never exercised.

  She came here six days a week to work out. She didn’t have a choice in the matter, but Joan enjoyed it. It could be worse, much worse. Here young, healthy people surrounded her—running, jumping, throwing, stretching, and all trying to be the best they could be physically. A few of them were donors like her. Most were professional athletes—citizens—who exercised here.

  Duncan Starr came to the Fitness Center often. He would exercise a little, but mostly he visited and gave advice to the other athletes. He and Joan had struck up an acquaintance at the Center. The first time they met he initiated a conversation, advising her on her long jump. She was certain he didn’t realize she was a donor; a brace hid Joan’s wrist tattoo, which identified her donor status. From then on, Joan made sure she was either wearing the wrist brace or her wrist phone.

  Duncan stood about five feet nine, his height a disadvantage for sports in a world where the average height among the top athletes was well over six feet. He kept his wavy blonde hair rather short but not short enough to hide the curls. His workouts kept his muscular frame perfectly proportioned. At first glance no one would describe him as handsome. His nose protruded from his face—not large, just out too far. In a nation that venerated physical perfection, it set him off as different. He could have corrected the nose with surgery. Other citizens did. Surgery to correct imperfections was ordinary. This made him, in Joan’s eyes, extraordinary.

  Duncan and Joan met many times after that first meeting. Sometimes they ran the track together. Sometimes they grabbed a bite to eat in the cafeteria. Sometimes they stretched together, talking to pass the time. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Duncan to be at the Center.

  Joan saw her trainer in the center of the grass. She paused before crossing the running track, while runners passed by. As she approached, she realized her co-donors were also present. Co-donors shared the same benefactor. Most citizens injected more than one donor with their umbilical cord blood to be safe. Redundancy. The more wealthy the citizen, the more donors they had.

  To her knowledge Joan had four co-donors. Three of them lay on the grass, stretching. The fourth hadn’t performed well in the last couple of years and had been cut loose by their mutual benefactor, Tegan. After Tegan let her go, the girl and her family—now without the wealthy benefactor—had to move out of their apartment. They had lived near Joan, but after Tegan cut her, Joan never saw her again. She was just gone.

  That was a perpetual fear of the donors: being cut by one’s benefactor, the result being the donor became a solus. A solus was of no use to any citizen, so they were also considered of limited use to the Alliance. Sometimes they disappeared. There were rumors of what the Alliance did with them, but no one was sure.

  Then her thoughts returned to the present and to her own problem, for she knew there was only one reason for all of the co-donors to be here together—an audition. Joan paused as that sunk in. That’s why Tegan’s entourage was here.

  The trainer waved Joan over. “Just heard you’re back for unrestricted workouts,” he said, pointing at his wrist phone.

  Jack Findlay was a good trainer. A fair man, he treated Joan and her fellow donors with respect. At their first meeting, she properly called him Mr. Findlay. Joan knew the rules governing the discourse between donors and citizens. Jack told her to call him by his first name. He was tall, at least six feet, five inches, circumspect, and in his younger days had been an accomplished athlete. At the age of twenty-four, a knee injury put an end to his competing days.

  When Joan first learned his history, she hadn’t understood how the injury ended his career. As a citizen, he was a benefactor to at least one donor. Why didn’t he take what he needed to repair his knee? She asked him once years ago about that. He looked thoughtfully at her but made no reply. At the time Joan didn’t understand. Now she understood some citizens didn’t agree with the System.

  After his injury, he turned his talents to training athletes instead of being one. At forty-five, Jack was a successful trainer.

  “What do you say about it? How’s the leg feel to you?” Jack asked, skeptical of her physical therapist’s opinion.

  “It’s fine,” she lied, “a little stiff, but—”

  He interrupted her, “There’s an audition today.”

  “But, Jack, I just got back. The surgery was two months ago. It’s not fair.”

  “I don’t make the rules, Double T, I just follow them.”

  The System formally identified donors with a seven-digit number—not a name—tattooing the number on their wrists. Names were only used among other donors and just in the donor ghetto. For common, everyday usage, people shortened the official number to two or three of the digits. Joan’s full number was 1919723, but she was known as “Twenty-Three.” Jack knew the rules. The System forbid him to use her name, so he affectionately called her Double T. Joan’s father had explained to her that Jack probably had diff
icultly referring to another person as a number.

  “It’s the shoulder being auditioned. Javelin. They want to tax some shoulder muscle. Start stretching.”

  “But you use your thigh and leg muscles with the javelin, too,” Joan persisted. She tended to push the envelope with Jack, in a way she never would with any other citizen. “It’s not fair.”

  Jack put his arm around her shoulder and leaned in close, “I can’t have you sit out. See who’s up there behind us in the stands? Tegan herself.”

  As her trainer, Jack knew the identity of Joan’s benefactor. Tegan’s parents paid his salary. “And Our Governor.”

  “I saw them come in. She’s going to watch the audition? Why? And why Our Governor?” Fear crept in her voice at the mention of the Governor.

  Jack shrugged, “Yesterday she won first place in the long jump at the southern regionals. Not a huge meet, but she did set a record for it. Did you hear about that?”

  Joan shook her head, confused. “But how did she do that so soon after …?” Joan’s voice trailed off. Obviously the high-quality medical care Tegan received enabled her to recover more quickly from the recent transplant than Joan. Of course, Joan lost part of her leg, while Tegan gained leg muscle.

  Jack handed her a blue jersey to pull over her shirt as they walked over to her co-donors. The other young women donors wore the same blue jerseys but with different numbers. Joan’s was emblazoned with “23.” They nodded hellos. They were not friends but competitors. Their benefactor was a top athlete. They had to perform at that par. This was their job.

  The System required benefactors to aid their donors financially. However, that wasn’t enough to survive. Most donors also worked menial jobs—the sorts of jobs citizens didn’t want. Joan’s job—and that of her co-donors—was to stay in first-rate physical shape. As long as she did, she received a generous stipend, a place to live, plenty of healthy food, and medical care. Benefactors even paid their donors a bonus if they were called upon to donate. Two months earlier Joan earned a large bonus for donating her leg muscle.