MiCHELLE BUCKMAN

FICTION that RETHINKS Life...

Author and Speaker

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ONE VOICE

An e-novel by Michelle Buckman

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The work was written for entertainment purposes. The author is not responsible for any comments, blogs or websites that appear as a result of this work.

Day One

Thursday, July 1

2032 A. D.

Chapter One

David Rudder passed by the old woman, then retraced his steps. Another skeleton in baggy flesh dressed in a nondescript pale blue dress stained with dribble. There was nothing to set her apart from the fifty other patients seated in the waiting area except that she was probably the oldest. Her fingers, twisted with arthritis, lay still in her lap until his shadow fell over her. She jerked involuntarily and pain leapt to her face in narrowed eyes and furrowed brow. As the pain eased off, her eyes opened, grey eyes revealing a stagnant mind. A waste. Not because she was no longer able to productively contribute to society, but because she’d been left untreated time and again until she reached this point of deterioration. She lacked the vitality that should still reside within. He imagined sights and sounds imprisoned in the recess of her mind: dreams, achievements, disappointment, loss, happiness, and anger. A whole life full of images and memories soon to be extinguished and forgotten.

He hated the cruelty of making her sit for hours in vain. That’s why he returned to her side. He still had a tongue in his head that could serve her. God loves you, sprang to mind, but the compupanel on the wall prevented that. Behind the droning platitudes the system emitted, there existed a system that tracked any breach of protocol. Intolerable words. Offensive. Exclusionary. The most he could do was acknowledge that someone actually cared about her. He laid one hand gently upon her arm. “The world will miss you,” he said and pressed a sample pain killer into her palm, then walked on, not realizing until he turned the next corner that she wasn’t likely to find comfort in that sentiment, but at her age, she would have been told many times over that the unselfish option was for her to resign herself to the inevitable. At least she could go home now rather than wait another couple hours. Even in her state of decline, she had enough faculty of mind to know she couldn’t expect much more than a pill.

As he made his way down the next hall, he pondered his lie. It was a lie. This world of outer states wasn’t likely to miss her. He had trouble comprehending their mindset, as foreign as it was to him and his kind, but he knew some would see her death as decreasing the use of resources. Stranger still, the younger members of society—her grandchildren and great-grandchildren—probably believed the rhetoric, and would agree it was a good thing if the old woman went ahead and died. It was a thought process he’d gathered over the past few weeks that went against everything he’d ever believed.

He emerged into the quad and paused as the sunlight struck him full force. He couldn’t focus. The world before him appeared like the fuzzy screen of old televisions set so bright that distinction of details was lost. An unreality of sorts. How apropos in this world of falsities.

After a moment, his eyes adjusted and he continued down the sidewalk. He didn’t know the exact location of the maternity ward, but trusted bits gleaned from overheard conversations as he moved across the quad toward the east entrance. He had no business there other than a need to see life at its beginning to wash away the past week of mumbling excuses and watching people die, to wipe away the memory of patients thrashing or even just whimpering at the end, and to erase the faces of the ones he had turned away even though they could have been cured, or at least given prolonged life.

Through a door, down a hall and up an elevator. A sensor picked up his presence and a soft female voice whispered into the air from hidden speakers: The Good Life Maternity Center is here to serve you and your community. Trust Authority. We have the nation’s best interests at heart. Good for the Nation, Good for the World.

He’d heard the voice so often in the halls of the medical center in the short time he’d been there that it barely even registered.

The maternity center didn’t have a formal lobby, but rather double glass doors leading in to a counter where three nurses sat snickering over a date gone awry. Different faces, different circumstances, but similar to stories shared by nurses back in the Life Continuity Center.

One nurse looked his way, but he turned, hurried down the hallway that veered to the right and ducked into the next doorway.

Inside the dingy room lay a woman on a birthing bed. Dark hair, coffee-colored skin. Spanish? Indian? He made a point of not knowing, of ignoring the category on her chart. He would treat her as a human—period.

He glanced at the light switch, aching to turn it on. The constant dimness depressed him. Lights were not permitted in rooms with windows until after nightfall, and then only for emergencies.

At least the medical panel lit up. Her record said her name was Siena.

He checked the readings then sat on a stool and stared at the lump of belly hosting the unborn life within.

Siena hissed out two words. “It hurts.”

He nodded. “I know.”

He couldn’t do anything for her. Delivery drugs were kept under lock and key. Even emergencies required special coding for release. Besides, given all else he’d seen that week, he didn’t have any angst over her pain. It would end and within hours she would be on her feet, out the door, the pain only a memory.

Her pain would end with life.

He could say that simply now. It had been different when it was his wife in labor. He had cringed with every contraction that wracked Elizabeth’s body, and tensed with every scream she emitted. He, the protector, had been unable to bear that pain for her. Where had that sympathy gone?

The answer came too easily: sympathy dissipated with so much worse left unresolved under his care.

As Siena groaned and arched her back against another contraction, he chided himself. Only a fool would believe he was there to wash away the deaths in the other building. He could have done that by walking through the park where children played, except youngsters brought no solace. He’d succeeded at delivering his daughter. He’d failed at being a father.

Today she would have been two.

Two years. It wasn’t supposed to hurt anymore.

Heavy footsteps came down the hall and stopped outside the door. He picked up the computerized medical chart and held his breath. It beeped and made him jump.

He hadn’t thought this venture through. Of course someone would come to attend the girl. A med would have to deliver the baby.

He should have gone to the nursery and pretended to be the father of one of the infants.

Too late. Now he was trapped.

The door opened with a thud admitting a huge doctor whose narrow eyes were lost above cheeks that pudged and sagged in proportion to his belly as he looked from David to the patient.

David flinched. The small blue birthing room closed in around him like a cage. He forced the nervous tension away. This guy wasn’t likely to suspect anything; he’d been passing as an outer state med all week. He wasn’t an obstetrician and hadn’t delivered a baby except during his residency, but as far as general medicine his skills far exceeded anything he’d seen in the other ward. It didn’t take much skill to tell people they were dying.

He didn’t know much about obstetrics, but chances were this guy wasn’t an obstetrician either. One thing he’d learned was that few onsite doctors specialized; it was an unnecessary expense and limited a doctor’s usefulness. Those that did specialize only worked until they reached their Federal Standardized Earnings Quota and then vacationed the rest of the year. Why work beyond the cap when it meant turning ninety percent of earnings over to the government?

He sucked in a calming breath. His false ID hung nonchalantly from his pocket. He could pass this off. The first minute would either convince this guy to accept him as a fellow doctor, or expose him as an intruder.

Lord, David silently prayed, be with me. Aloud, his voice was deep and even. “Her contractions are three minutes apart. She’s hurting pretty badly.” He pointed to the reading on the machine behind him.

As if to affirm his statement, Siena screamed then droned on in agonized whimpers as she pounded the bed with her fists and tossed around frantically.

The doctor, holding the door open, leaned his head back into the hall. “Hey Mersrisha, five milligrams of Q2. Pronto.”

“I’ve clocked out.”

He cursed under his breath. “Well, send someone down here with it.”

“Under what code?”

He cussed. “Get it! I’ll take care of it on this end.”

He stared at David’s back until a nurse scurried in around him, checked vitals, administered the pain killer and left again.

The drug dropped the girl into oblivion almost instantly, and the cramped room became a monotonous blend of hospital sounds: the rhythmic beeping of the monitor and the occasional clicking of the intravenous drip machine mingled with her quiet simpers.

Only then did the med completely enter and let the door close. With authority, he took the chart from David, punched a few keys and passed his palm over the chart scanner, then watched as it beeped recognition and displayed: 1:05 pm July 1, 2032 Markus Homes. His eyes remained locked on it in a moment of indecision, and then he turned, his gaze moving over David’s lanky frame, taking in every detail. “Why didn’t Kim administer anything?”

David played it cool and reached over to a side table to pick up a hospital pamphlet with big black letters stating Know Your Rights! The Unified Order grants all women the right to two live children. In smaller print below that, Government surrogates may conceive and bear beyond that number under proper supervision with Unified Order authorization of approved birth-count parents. Surrogates were an issue he knew nothing about; he didn’t deal with them at home. He shifted uncomfortably trying to contrive words that might make sense. “Surrogates weren’t provided for or had to sign acceptance for billing or something.” That’s what was listed on the chart: Surrogate—no billing provided.

David tensed on the edge of his seat ready for flight.

The med’s steely expression didn’t soften. “Yeah. Right. Always by the book.” He turned to the bed. Without comment, he pushed the woman onto her back, pulled her knees up and proceeded to check her cervical dilation. “Wow. Didn’t you check her? We shouldn’t have given her anything so late. Screwed up my delivery.” He glared at David then buzzed the nurses’ station, and spoke into the air. “I need a setup, stat.”

David couldn’t sit still under such scrutiny. He moved to the girl’s bedside, stared at her a moment, then glanced around the room. Everything was scrubbed clean, yet had a worn, secondhand look about it. An intolerable disinfectant odor was making him light-headed, and dulling his concentration.

“Shift ended ten minutes ago, you know,” the med said.

David’s angled features became more taunt as he looked at the girl and swept the hair back from her plain face. Should he go? Escape while he could? Or would that raise more suspicion?

He shrugged.

Markus arched one brow. “It’s your life. Don’t expect me to stay, though. When the clock hits eight, I’m outta here.”

After a moment of silence, the med held his hand out. “Name’s Markus Holmes. Med III.”

David shook it. “Rex Montane.” He had practiced saying the alias until it rolled off his tongue with ease.

As their eyes met, Markus was transfixed by the guy’s eyes. Jesus eyes, Markus thought, like the picture of the Messiah that had hung in his parents’ den a lifetime ago. Those same deep brown eyes full of compassion that devoured all there was in a person, yet revealed nothing. He wondered where that picture went. Confiscated and burned probably.

The monitor whirred. Both men turned back to the patient as another contraction registered. She only moaned.

“So you’re new here?” Markus asked.

David gave his canned response. “Been at a country infirmary for two years. Not much action.”

Markus harrumphed, shifted his bulky frame and went back to the electronic chart. The guy was only human, not the risen Christ. One desperate prayer to God last night for the first time in twenty years and I expect Christ to come in person, to land right here in a hospital room with me. Right. He watched puzzled as David examined a tray of instruments. First day jitters? Not that Markus cared; he only pulled his hours and left. Five more years and they would force him to retire. Nothing but a bunch of political crap, Kim Lui making all the money and him being passed over again. He would be glad when the five years were up. The whole hospital could fall apart for all he cared.

He pushed his straight black hair off his forehead—a habit he repeated constantly without realizing it—and continued to watch the stranger. Something about him piqued his interest. For one thing, nobody stayed past shift end, ever. “You may as well go back to the country. No body lasts long here. You’ll see. Too much work for too little pay. Research is the only place to make money anymore. I can remember a time when it meant something to be a doctor.” Markus sank into memories of his father and grandfather in private practices with loyal clientele. He sighed. Times sure had changed. “I remember when hospitals ran air conditioning too.”

David nodded. Some of the wards were stifling hot. The heat alone was enough to kill off the elderly patients. There was no reason for him to get upset about it though because this med was right, he would be gone in another day or two. But not because of the lack of pay. He wasn’t on the payroll. He was filling in the empty hole of his life with Good.

Good for what, he wasn’t sure. If the scanners or compupanels figured out he was a Dominian, he’d be hauled in and probably imprisoned. It sure wasn’t because he was brave. He wouldn’t have taken on the mission at all if he hadn’t felt so dead inside. That, and seeing Axyl Houston’s name in the reports. He and Axyl had been childhood friends. He hadn’t seen him in years, not since the UO—the Unified Order—was established, and Axyl was remanded to a Unified Order institute. David’s family had gathered up a few suitcases of belongings and fled to the Cloistered Dominion, the Christian reservation established to protect the few who refused to compromise their doctrine to meet new Federal Tolerance guidelines.

When he saw Axyl’s name mentioned in the Redemption file, it triggered memories that rarely surfaced—boyhood memories of baseball games and school chums, rickety club houses in the woods, and games of hide-and-go-seek. He had a hard time believing that Axyl had become some mastermind of evil the way the Dominion Council implied. From his research, it seemed like Axyl had created legislature to better mankind, but it was hard to read through the doubletalk produced on the Net nowadays. It was all sanitized to promote whatever the government wanted to advance. He knew that. And he knew the horror stories his mother repeated over and over about the Christian persecution that had forced them into the Cloistered Dominion. That’s why he had agreed to the assignment. He agreed to find the truth of medical practices, to determine how extreme those measures had become, not as reported by the media, but how they were actually executed. A person couldn’t trust what was delivered through the media any more. So he was sent to find out first hand.

But right now, he just wanted to get out of this room. He thought seeing a birth would prove that he’d gotten over Elizabeth and the birth of Bethany, but his stomach was knotting up, and he fought to swallow the bile rising in his throat. He couldn’t stand it. He had to get out of there.

As he took a step toward the exit, the door swung open, and a nurse entered humming something like the tune of a child’s ABCs as she checked pulse and temperature readings.

“Shakita’s on her way,” she said as she left, and resumed her tune, words floating in the air as the door slowly pulled itself closed behind her. “And praise your liberty every day; UO deliverance is here to stay. The Unified Order is your friend; we take care of you to the end…”

The last of the tune was almost inaudible, but Markus bobbed his head back and forth to the beat with a frown that creased his whole face. “Right to the end all right. Bah.”

David’s heart started to pound at Markus’ contempt. Infiltrating the Life Continuity Center had given him an inside view of how the elderly and infirm were denied care, but what did that accomplish? What did that change?

Nothing.

Maybe information wasn’t the root of what he was after. Certainly, the Cloistered Dominion—The Dome, as it was often called—wanted to verify how procedures were implemented. However, the ultimate goal was to redeem the country. The South, they had decided, may be the easiest to raise to rebellion since they used to be known as the Bible Belt, and the last coerced into socialist atheism. What had the Dome Council said? Find a contact, a friend… a disillusioned med?

Be not afraid; I go before you always, David whispered. Realistically, if he was caught having left The Dome without proper certification, he would be fined, possibly imprisoned. If he was caught undercover in a medical facility, he would be charged with malpractice, possibly stripped of ever practicing medicine again. If he was caught talking about Christianity in public, they would say he was a threat to National Security and possibly shoot him.

The patient groaned and arched, profanities spewing.

None of those scenarios twisted his insides like the impending delivery of this woman’s baby.

David looked from her to the door to the med. If this guy was the link they were looking for…

“Here it comes,” said Markus. He buzzed again for a nurse and cursed into the intercom.

The room was suddenly alive with activity. Three nurses jostled around to get trays in place. The bed was shifted to delivery position. Masks were pulled up and birthing lights were focused. The sudden brightness reflected off the shiny chrome tables and faded into the blue hue of the walls.

“Okay, lady, push,” said Markus.

David faded to the background and watched the woman’s efforts, her eyes rolling with ignorance of what her body was doing.

All he wanted was to see a baby and feel joy again. To look at an infant, think of Bethany, and not coil inside with guilt and anger.

He wanted to love once more.

In his mind, the baby was Bethany again, delivered all wet and wailing, placed in his arms. Elizabeth, exhausted, sweating, yet beaming at him. And then the quiet time in the dimness of the room, sitting together staring at the beauty of their daughter. Nothing in life had ever been that perfect. All of life stretched out before them.

If only the memory could stop there, remain there, but it moved forward, moved to the next day on the way home. Elizabeth hadn’t been able to bear her whimpers from the car seat. They were frozen in his mind that way: Elizabeth’s thick brown hair pulled into a neat ponytail, her full face flushed and radiant with new mother-love, and Bethany, hours old, snuggled in Elizabeth’s arms, peaking out from a bundle of blankets.

The next instant, they were dead, crushed by a truck at the third intersection. He had survived. Cold and empty but alive.

He needed more than a heart beating in his chest. He needed to care about something again.

Don, his brother-in-law, member of the Dominion Council, had recommended him for the mission to give him a new purpose, a new goal. A brother-in-law’s concern with a councilman’s pull. The mission was more than a diversion; it was of major importance. He knew that.

He couldn’t blow it now. He had to concentrate. Elizabeth was the past. This mission was the future.

The girl cried as a fuzzy round head crowned. Markus continued to bully the girl. “Again. Push. Now! Push.”

The head finally emerged. With the next contraction and one deft motion, the infant slid in to Markus’ huge hands.

Markus’ smile puffed his full cheeks up into his dark eyes. “Baby boy born at… 1:23.”

A nurse filled in the record, then reached for the baby boy. The baby didn’t cry. He mewed like a kitten as if he knew he better state his case immediately. “Hi sweetie,” she trilled. “Aren’t you beautiful? Wait till your mama sees you.”

David swallowed the glob of tears in his throat and turned away.

Markus pressed on the surrogate’s stomach, delivering the placenta. “Is the mother in the waiting room?”

“No.” The nurse’s shrill baby-talk voice dropped to normal. “But she’s been called.”

A stern-faced male nurse entered with an empty blood sample vial and a syringe. After making the baby squall with a poke from the sharp needle, he left without a word to anyone.

The baby’s whimpers languished, and silence fell over the staff, each absorbed in their duties. David watched, made some notes, pretended to be busy.

Markus made fast work of the stitches, glancing intermittently at the stranger. He didn’t seem to actually be taking part in any of it. Something was up.

With a nod from Markus, two techs transferred the drugged woman to a gurney.

“What’d she get?” asked the taller of the two.

“It’s on the chart. Q2. She was endangering the kid.”

“The administrator won’t like this, wasting funds on a surrogate.”

“I’ll take care of the alligator. Get this girl out to recovery.”

David moved around the room, his tanned skin rippling over his muscles with every movement. The nurse shook her kinky curls at him, her appreciation for his body written in the way she posed.

David shooed her away and gently cleansed the tiny infant himself. He marveled at the nickel-sized ears and pursed lips. He touched the little fist, uncurled the fingers and stroked the tiny palm. He blinked tears away and steadied himself. Bethany had been so tiny, smaller than this fellow and perfect, and he had felt so immediately protective of her with a love so pure even his passionate love for Elizabeth couldn’t compare. He had loved Bethany more in that first instant than he had ever loved before. Oh, how he wanted to be a father!

Markus looked over his shoulder and groaned. “Isn’t that a shame. It’s a Down’s kid.”

Tears welled in David’s eyes and spilled over. He brushed them away. “I’ve never seen a case except in text books.”

Markus looked at him suspiciously.

David shrugged. “With gene corrections and terminations…”

Markus pointed. “Look here, the single heavy wrinkle across his palm and the space between the first and second toe. See? And the slanting of the palpebral fissures making the eyes look Oriental. And the ears are set low and fold over just slightly. Really a textbook case. Of course, we’ll check the blood work to be sure…”

The intercom phone buzzed. “Dr. Holmes?”

“Yeah.”

“Surrogate 2090, Infant 2090-5?”

“Yeah.”

“The test shows Down’s.”

Markus frowned and sighed. “Yeah. I figured. Send the data up.”

“On its way.”

The machine buzzed out a page of medical jargon.

The hair on David’s neck prickled as Kim Lui, Head Med, stepped into the room, her back stiff and stretched to her maximum height of five foot six inches. “Markus, did you get my memo about that sonogram machine?”

David could see him physically pulling his animosity into check as he turned to face her. “Yes. I did.”

She leaned around him, her authority worn like armor as she glanced at the newborn, then pulled it’s arm out and examined the hand. “What a waste. Well, euthanize it.”

David clasped the baby tighter. To hold a child, alive and squirming, and be ordered to destroy it… Bethany had died because of his negligence. He wouldn’t fail twice. Concern for his own safety evaporated. “Please, God,” he muttered under his breath.

Kim Lui looked David over with a raised eyebrow, then glanced at Markus’ expressionless face, and turned abruptly, her hips swaying slightly as she walked back out despite her efforts to the contrary.

Markus clenched his fists. “Femi.” He growled it as if it were a curse, but shook off the anger almost as fast. There was zero tolerance for intolerance. He turned to the infant, his fingers almost touching the dark fluff of hair, but he resisted and busied himself with removing his protective wear. “As long as you’re sticking around, you can dispose of it. I had to do two last week.” He smiled weakly. “So much for them not reaching this far.”

“Two?”

“Cerebral Palsy.” He looked at his watch to emphasize his next words. “Fetal distress during shift change. Oxygen loss.”

David ignored the implication. He wasn’t worried about shift change being long over. “And the other one?”

Markus sighed, the weight of the admission hanging on his shoulders. “They expected a boy and got a girl. Someone screwed up the prenatal.”

“They killed their daughter because they wanted a son?”

“Well, they don’t look at it that way.”

David stared at him.

He shrugged. “They already had a girl.”

Distress bled through the poker face David tried hard to maintain.

Markus couldn’t figure this guy out. He looked like an average guy but he acted like he was from Mars. “They only get two kids. They have a choice and they’ve become choosey. They wanted a boy.”

David clenched his teeth to keep from reacting.

Markus couldn’t understand this guy’s naiveté, but he could understand his disgust. Unfortunately, the practice was so commonplace that no one seemed to care anymore. Or if they did, they were forced to keep silent. Speaking against the right to choose euthanasia was an Intolerance Crime. “I’d like to choke those idiots in the Nab Lab. We shouldn’t have to deal with this so late in the game, but so much pre-natal care has been cut. Well, you know. Let’s get on with it. I assume you’d rather let the machine do it.”

David looked at the little boy with his wide grey eyes staring trustingly up at him. Suddenly the fist of miniature fingers struck out as he wailed.

He wanted to run out the door with this little baby boy, but instead he stood shaking with uncertainty. He could hear Axyl’s voice of yesteryears taunting him, calling him a chicken because he had dodged a fastball aimed at his head. He was still a chicken. Who was he fooling? No one.

As he closed his eyes to gather his wits, the image of Axyl was replaced with Elizabeth, her calming smile flooding through him. She had always had such faith in him. The memory of her filled him with courage he could never possess on his own. She would tell him to look for another way. Another way? He already suspects something.

The tiny hand clasped one of David’s fingers. Tears sprang to his eyes. He had to stall. “I’ve never, uh, done this before.”

“Come on, I’ll show you where to go.”

David swaddled the baby with expert efficiency and held him close, quieting him with a whispered prayer.

This mission was going to test the very core of his faith.

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ONE VOICE

can change

one voice

can change

one voice

Can make all the difference.