Inherent Cost

by Alicia Cameron

  “Send him for a full medical evaluation in addition to the standard questioning.”

  Wren’s hopes were dashed to nothing when he heard those words, and he remained kneeling, afraid of what was coming next. In just a few minutes, he was collected by a free person in uniform, one who carried a short stock whip on his belt. Wren waited for a command, but felt himself being pulled up roughly by his arm instead. He fought to keep himself from pulling back.

  He was taken into an examination room. A part of him wanted to feel comfortable in the familiar medical setting, but the only comfort he could imagine was being back with Jere, in their own clinic. In any other setting, an examination room promised nothing but pain.

  The doctor entered from another room. “Strip,” he ordered, not bothering with any of the formalities that Jere would have with any patient.

  Wren shuddered. Either the doctor had such an inadequate healing gift that he couldn’t even assess Wren’s health without visually inspecting him, or the order was meant to be intimidating. Even those with the most limited healing gifts could assess a person’s medical condition with just a touch and their psychic gift.

  Wren removed his clothes quickly, reminding himself that compliance would get him the best results, as well as trying to show off his healing gift as much as possible. He wanted to make an impression—an impression that clearly conveyed his one and only gift.

  The moment he complied, the doctor reached out, grabbing him by the neck. Many healers worked best when they were in contact with their patient’s head, but Wren only felt the threat of strangulation. He fought the urge to resist and reminded himself to keep his firesetting gift well within his control. He felt the uncomfortable sensation of someone pushing into his head and he gritted his teeth.

  “Don’t fight me, boy,” the doctor warned, triggering an instant memory of Wren’s former owner. “I can make this tolerable, or I can make it hurt like hell.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Wren mumbled. Healing had always hurt, from the moment he was taken as a slave until he met Jere. Jere had showed him how to let someone in willingly, how to welcome someone’s psychic gift into his own, but how much of that depended on his firesetting gift? It was all mixed up and confused in Wren’s mind, and he decided that resisting the psychic intrusion like he always used to was far less dangerous than doing anything that might alert the evaluators about his second gift.

  As expected, the searing pain coursed through his body, making his head pound and his stomach churn. He felt dizzy, and he could sense someone else’s presence inside of his head. The doctor had made his way in, with no effort made to shield Wren from the discomfort.

  He felt the doctor assessing his health, checking his organs, his blood levels, everything inside of him through the healing connection. With Jere, even before they meant anything to one another, the process felt limited, respectful. Now it felt too rough, too deep, like he was being violated. To add to it, the doctor’s free hand started moving all over him, feeling inside of his mouth, around his neck, over his stomach and between his legs. Wren squirmed, feeling his temperature start to rise, and he earned himself a rough slap as a result. That only made the firesetting gift more active, and Wren jerked his way out of the healer’s grip.

  “Stupid whore,” the doctor snapped, stepping out into the hallway.

  Wren curled into a ball, knowing that the repercussions for resisting would be severe. The healer would probably be too weak for any sort of long-term mind-bind, which meant restraints, and once he was restrained, Wren knew he would have no chance of fighting back.

  His predictions were true, and even as he sat there, struggling to hold himself together, two guards came in with heavy chains between them. For once, Wren wished they had just come with medical restraints. He didn’t fight them, but he whimpered as the cold metal was pulled tight around his ankles and wrists, then attached to a set of shackles on the wall. He was pinned there, helpless. Even if he could burn his way out, the chains would still hold him. He wondered if they knew.

  The doctor began the examination again, rougher this time, and he paid more attention to Wren’s responses. Wren closed his eyes, trying to think of Jere, trying to focus enough to hold his firesetting gift at bay. He didn’t listen to the doctor’s questions, and he didn’t respond, even when the man slapped and kicked him. He was silent until he heard a familiar voice in the hallway.

  “The male?” Nicolette Arnsdale, the head of the Slave Control, Regulation, and Enforcement Agency, was engaged in a very heated conversation with one of the evaluators. “What did he do? I thought it was the girl we were interested in?”

  “Actually, it’s both of them, and the doctor. They’re starting all sorts of trouble—some sort of altercation with a veterinarian.”

  “Karmin Barrett?” Arnsdale asked. “She’s the head of the Human Veterinary Association. Lately, it seems that they’re the only professional organization supporting our agency. We should take her concerns very seriously.”

  Wren listened, grateful to have something other than his stupid gifts to contend with. He could listen to this information, take it home to Jere, use it for... he didn’t know what he would use it for, but he liked the thought of doing something useful. He hoped it could destroy everyone in this building.

  “A few community members have submitted anonymous reports of other violations,” the doctor continued. “Co-mingling of slave and human medical treatment, poor clinic quality due to the amount of time treating slaves. Dr. Peters is associating with a number of known abolitionists and terrorists, but we don’t have anything solid on him, yet. I’ve been trying to find any sort of marks or identification that would indicate involvement in something like that, but this one seems clean. Of course, those sorts of criminals would never leave evidence that easy. There has to be something, though.”

  “We’ll find it,” Arnsdale said. From the sounds of it, she hadn’t taken kindly to her last interaction with Jere. Being called out for abusing a child, even a slave child, wasn’t something that would be forgotten easily, especially when it happened in public.

  The telltale click of high heels announced her entry into the examination room, and Wren prayed that he would pass out quickly. While the healer was still prying around in his mind, Arnsdale walked over to Wren and grabbed his hair, prompting him to open his eyes.

  “I always knew there was something off about your master,” she hissed. “Nobody fights that hard because he had to take a day off of work. What is his real purpose? Is he a spy? Is he trying to sabotage our agency?”

  Wren was stunned. This was about Jere? “No, ma’am. He’s a doctor. He’s just from Sonova.”

  Arnsdale was quiet. She glanced at the doctor, who seemed to be monitoring Wren’s responses both physically and psychically. “Watch for any irregularities.”

  The doctor nodded, and Wren felt the psychic energy increasing, jabbing into his mind uncomfortably.

  Arnsdale questioned him about everything she knew about; Jere’s arrival in Hojer, his relationship with Kieran, quite a bit about Isis, the SRA. Wren was able to answer her questions easily, and after a few had passed, he felt more in control. He could handle this. The woman was grasping at straws, and Wren had years of experience holding back his gift. As the interrogation progressed, he felt himself growing more confident as Arnsdale became more frustrated. She was trying desperately to link Jere with some sort of crime or corruption, but she had nothing to go on.

  “What about before Dr. Peters owned you? Were you this much of a problem, then?”

  Wren frowned at the change of course. He liked it far better when they were talking about Jere.

  “I was owned by Hojer’s previous doctor, ma’am. Matthias Burghe.”

  “I remember Dr. Burghe,” the doctor said. “A good man. Never gave us any problems, never tried to bring in garbage ideas like this Dr. Peters is doing. I’m sure he healed his own slave, but he wouldn’t have lowered our professional standing by ad
vertising that he would treat slaves in his clinic. Good healers are few and far between; we need to save those resources for the people who truly deserve them.”

  Wren shuddered at the thought of his last master. The man had tortured him for years. The only kind thing he had ever done was to choose Jere as his successor.

  “And how did your new master come to inherit Dr. Burghe’s property?”

  “I was left in his will, ma’am. Along with the clinic. They knew each other from Sonova University.”

  “Didn’t he die of a heart attack or something?” Arnsdale asked. “Maybe he was poisoned. Did Dr. Peters have anything to do with his death?”

  “No, ma’am. It was a fire. My master had no idea until he was summoned by Dr. Burghe’s lawyer,” Wren supplied, trying to act disinterested. Still, he felt his gift spark at the memory. Jere didn’t have anything to do with Burghe’s death, but Wren had killed the monster with the same gift that he was trying so hard to hide.

  The doctor glanced up at Arnsdale. “That seemed to upset him,” he reported.

  Arnsdale let a smile cross her face. “A fire? Was it accidental?”

  Wren tried to remind himself that the woman had no idea what she was looking for. “I believe so, ma’am. I don’t remember much of it. I was burned badly. I nearly died.”

  “How convenient.”

  Arnsdale stepped out, and Wren wondered for a moment if she was going to research the case, maybe leave him alone for a while. She returned just a few minutes later with a small cauterizing gun.

  “Let’s see if we can revive your memories.”

  Chapter 28

  Press Conference

  For a few minutes, Jere could do nothing but stare at the door in shock. It was Isis who finally broke him out of his reverie, her sobs catching his attention.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated, over and over again. “I should have done better, I should have done better at the audit, or something, my gift—”

  “This isn’t your fault,” he said quietly. He had to be strong, not because it would do him any good, but because Isis didn’t need him breaking down and becoming useless, and neither did Wren. If he wanted to fix any of this, he had to take action.

  “I need to send a telegraph to Kieran, and I need you to start working on some things for me,” he told Isis, hoping she would calm down if she had something to focus on. “There’s a book of slave codes and rules in my office. I’d like you to look through it for me, see if there is anything that can help us out. Keep an eye out too for anything related to slaves being seized, or evaluations, or—”

  “I’ll just memorize it,” Isis muttered, her voice still shaky. “That way, you can ask me anything you need.”

  Jere nodded. “We’re gonna get him back,” he promised. “And I don’t care what happens to Hojer while I do.”

  Jere went to the clinic and treated the patients who were waiting there as quickly as possible. He didn’t blame them, but they were keeping him from Wren. When he had cleared the waiting room, he put out the “emergencies only” sign. It was his job to keep them alive, but he wasn’t about to be wasting time on wellness checks and colds.

  As soon as the clinic was under control, he sent his telegraph and began reviewing as much information as possible about Arona’s healthcare laws and The Slavery Reform Act. He had been hesitant to get involved, but if they dared to take Wren from him, he wasn’t afraid to fight back. He had no greater goal than to see something about this state’s legal system collapse.

  Kieran arrived the next morning looking almost as distraught as Jere felt.

  “I’m in,” he announced, before even saying hello. “I want in on the SRA. Make me your speaker, make me your example.”

  Kieran was clearly surprised, but she nodded. “As a whole, it’s still receiving sort of shaky acceptance. There’s a lot of unhappiness that the healthcare part is tied up with other slave acts. It’s a little too conservative for the passionate anti-slavery activists, but still too radical for the really pro-slavery ones, so that’s kind of a problem. We’re catching the middle, but the edges are kind of unhappy on either side. Which is stupid, because the anti-slavery types should see that this is progress!”

  “I remember when you first started getting interested in this, you were ready to just burn down the house of any and every slaveowner. That’s where I’m at, now. I want Hojer to realize that passing the SRA is in their very best interest.”

  “It will mean a lot to people to see you supporting this. Now you’re not just the outlander doctor, you’re one of them. You’re having your slaves, your life, your livelihood messed with. This makes you the perfect example—I just wish that it was different, for Wren’s sake.”

  “I plan to do more than support it,” Jere muttered, unwilling and unable to even think about Wren at the moment. He would collapse if he did. “Should I be worried about my safety? Or Isis’s? I assume Wren is safe wherever he’s being kept.”

  Kieran gave him a nervous look.

  “What?” Jere demanded.

  “I got in touch with an inside contact we have in the slave agency,” Kieran said, apologetic. “They’re not just keeping him there... they’re questioning him, Jere. Probably more. I’m not sure about the details—”

  Jere blinked back the tears that he could feel in his eyes. “All the more reason to move quickly.”

  “They won’t kill him. He’s a bargaining tool.”

  Jere shuddered. They would probably do everything but kill him. He couldn’t think about it. “What about townspeople? Me and Isis?”

  “Jere, if they hurt you, they’re losing their doctor. After what those guys did to Wren while you were gone? I’d be worried, but I’d still do it. They’re not just angry, they’re afraid. I really think that Hojer’s need for a doctor is going to outweigh the threats of having a potential abolitionist in the town.”

  “Have there been any sorts of attacks?” Jere asked. “I mean, aside from Wren. Any documented ones on people who are actually involved.”

  Kieran shook her head. “Right now, it’s protests against big businesses, industries, politicians. They have the most influence in things like this. They influence the elections, they influence the way that the population thinks. Small players like yourself are being left out of it. This sort of legislation is happening in bigger states than Arona. Remember, something happens to you and all these people in Hojer lose a doctor—not what anyone wants in case there really is a disease risk in the future. Nobody from here is going to push that issue; at least, they haven’t anywhere else. I’d keep a close eye on Isis, but I doubt she’s going anywhere, anyway.”

  Isis just nodded. She had made it very clear that she wasn’t going out that door or away from Jere in any circumstances.

  “Do you know how to make this public?” Jere asked.

  Kieran nodded. She began doing what she did best, organizing the best way to create chaos and promote her “cause.” This time, it was Jere’s cause as well. And he had a surprise planned for his loyal patients.

  The next day, Jere made his first public appearance to promote The Slavery Reform Act.

  Isis knelt on the floor next to the podium, assuming her rightful place behind and below her master. A few feet of leather connected them, and for once, it didn’t bother Jere. Isis was even tolerating it surprisingly well—from the moment Kieran suggested that having a slave present would not only increase his sympathy, but make sure Isis was safe while Jere was out of the house, Isis had been accepting of the choice. The fact that Jere was sending off enough psychic energy to make strangers on the street flinch helped as well.

  Jere looked out at the crowd that had gathered for the speech Kieran had arranged in just a matter of hours. He recognized most of the faces. He had treated most of these people. Those from out of town were easy to identify, they banded together, often with signs or nametags indicating where they were from or what organization they were associated with. The Human Veterinary Asso
ciation was strongly represented, but Barrett was nowhere in sight.

  “My name is Jeremy Peters. As most of you know, I’m a healer—I’ve met most of you, healed you, treated your wounds, kept you healthy. I’m standing here to make sure you continue to be healthy.”

  He had the attention of the crowd, at least for now. He wondered how many thought he was going to tell them that there was a new infectious disease in their town. He considered doing so, even though it would be a lie.

  “For now, you are safe. But the ‘rotting disease’ is spreading. As Hojer’s sole doctor, my job is to keep you safe. All of you. And that includes the slave population.”

  There was a quiet rumble from the crowd as participants aired their many grievances on the subject. One especially loud voice called out “Lacklers aren’t people!” The slur against slaves was impolite, but all of the discussions on the controversial topic devolved to this level rather quickly.

  “Whether slaves are ‘people’ or not is a matter of philosophy, not a matter of medicine,” Jere answered, his tone of voice as carefully guarded as his emotions were.

  “Nobody here has that disease!” another audience member protested. “If a slave gets it, we can just shoot it, anyway.”

  “And risk putting contaminated blood into the air?” Jere reminded the audience, looking appalled. “We don’t know how this disease spreads, and we won’t know how future diseases will spread, either. By mandating proper medical care, we can fight this if—or when—it comes to our town. It’s only a speed train ride away.”

  “So do your job!” someone called out.

  Jere smiled at the invitation. “That is exactly what I am doing. I’m here to let you know that the passage of the SRA is vital to Hojer’s continuing health. But you should know that already. Just in case you don’t, I’d like to make it very clear—providing subpar treatment to any part of the community places you all at risk. I’m making it my mission to reduce that risk by implementing some new safety measures.”