Inherent Cost

by Alicia Cameron

  The officials were debating inside, casting their vote for state and local issues and collaborating with other cities to report the results of the state issues. It seemed to take an eternity before any word was heard from inside. Jere thought idly of the olden days when people could watch the proceedings on television screens or through the Internet, getting instant updates. It seemed so strange that so much information could pass so quickly back then, especially without the use of mind gifts.

  Someone with a mind gift received the first news—the spouse of one of the political members inside of the building. He had a loudspeaker, and he started announcing the results of the vote. The Slavery Reform Act wasn’t the only issue being debated in this year’s election, although it was arguably the most controversial. The results on zoning for a new city park came first, followed by a proposed tax change for small businesses. As each issue was approved or denied, the large crowd became more and more incited.

  Finally, the results of the vote on The Slavery Reform Act were revealed.

  “Approved, with a final vote of six to five in favor!” the person called out over the loudspeaker, excited. His side was clearly that of the supporters.

  The crowd exploded. There were cheers, cries of protest, and cries of pain from the slaves who were unfortunately positioned on the receiving end of many of the dissenters’ anger. Jere watched in amazement as someone sent up little beams of colored light with a mind gift, filling the sky with a scene that reminded Jere of the fireworks that Sonova held every year in celebration of the survival of the human race after The Fall.

  The beautiful festivities only lasted so long before the ugliness of the state destroyed it.

  The party opposing the bill took out their anger on their slaves, slapping and screaming at them, yelling loudly about their “rights” to do so. Clearly, their rights were extending to other people’s slaves as well, and even to some free people, as tensions quickly came to a head and fights started to break out. The few moments of happiness and peace came crashing to a halt, and the Hojer police department struggled to contain the scene.

  In addition to the free officers from Hojer and the neighboring boroughs, police slaves had been dispatched. Jere watched with wide eyes as one was ordered to place himself between two free people who had started brawling. The slave obeyed, but within seconds, he was snatched up by an angry mob, thrown to the ground and kicked repeatedly. Vandalizing police property was a crime, but with all the commotion, the crime was overlooked. The free police officers had bigger things to worry about, protecting the very free people who were causing the damage.

  Against the background of screamed curse words and insults, the police slave was set ablaze by one of the spectators. Some arrogant free person was flaunting the same mind gift that Wren had to hide every day, and Jere couldn’t reconcile the brutality as he watched the slave writhe and scream as his skin blackened and turned to ash. Jere was a healer, but he couldn’t heal this; Wren had a firesetting gift that could stop it, but he couldn’t risk revealing it. Jere covered his nose with his hand, blocking the smell of burning flesh, and he felt relief once the slave finally stopped struggling.

  The tormenters moved on, leaving the body and seeking out another victim.

  Jere was startled as he was bumped from behind, nearly falling but for Wren’s quick intervention, catching him around the waist.

  “Look at it, putting its dirty lackler hands all over its master,” the person who bumped them snarled, glaring at Wren. “Maybe we should take this one and teach it some manners.”

  Chapter 35

  Costs

  Jere wasn’t much of one for physical confrontation, or confrontation at all, for that matter, but he pulled Wren behind him and shoved the aggressor away from both of them, sending a spark of psychic pain along with his shove.

  “Touch him and I will make your stomach digest you from the inside out,” he growled, dropping any sort of reasonable hold on his psychic abilities.

  Jere sometimes forgot what a threat he posed, especially when he was enraged. The psychic energy nearly crackled off of him, and the fact that he had been able to assess the man’s entire health from the single second of contact he had with him indicated exactly how focused Jere was. The man backed down, muttering something about Jere being crazy, and a stupid, sentimental slave-lover, but he retreated. Other people gave him wide berth as well.

  He turned to Wren, who actually pulled back a little, whether from the excess psychic energy, or the rage on Jere’s face.

  For once, Jere was pleased to be intimidating. “We need to leave.”

  Jere shielded Wren’s body with his own. The crowd had devolved into a riot; psychic energy and weapons of all sorts flew in every direction. While the crowd mostly contained their violence against free people to fistfights, slaves of all sorts were subject to any combination of aggression. While some seemed caught up in the chaos by accident, many others were being volunteered by their masters, pushed toward the angry crowds like sacrifices. One of the slaves was being drowned with psychic water, another was being thrown into the air and dropped to the ground repeatedly, another’s head was slowly being squeezed by an unknown force until her eyeballs threatened to pop from her skull. Jere couldn’t understand how places like Hojer ever decided that those with physical gifts were more dangerous than those with mind gifts.

  They made their way home quickly; nobody considered bothering them as they made their way through the crowd. If they hadn’t seen or heard Jere’s outburst, they could feel the psychic energy from him, and it was something no rational person would choose to contend with. They moved quickly away from the crowd and toward the outskirts of town, where the house was. Jere didn’t drop his guard or his psychic presence until they were well out of range of everyone else. Once he did, he was shaking.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Wren, forcing himself to calm down a little.

  “Yeah.” Wren offered him a grim smile. “You scared me for a minute, but I’m good now. Thank you.”

  “Sorry I scared you,” Jere said. “He was threatening you. I needed to make sure he realized that wasn’t acceptable.”

  “Could you really do that? The stomach digestion thing?”

  Jere considered it, then nodded. It was technically possible; not like it was something they taught in medical school, but they were taught how to repair tears in the stomach lining and how to control the flow of stomach acid, so changing the fine details of that process would certainly result in something like that. “Yeah. I’m not sure if I would, but I think just giving someone heartburn after a threat like that would be enough to scare them away from you.”

  Wren smiled. “You’re creative. Even Burghe never thought of that one.”

  Jere laughed. He wasn’t sure if the statement was a compliment or just a general statement of horror, but either way, he appreciated that Wren seemed grateful for his intervention. “I’ll be damned if I let anyone hurt you. And things seemed out of control enough back there that I might have even been able to get away with it.”

  “It was pretty bad.”

  “I didn’t expect that. I thought there would be some excitement, some people who were disappointed, but I never expected there to be such a fucking riot!” Jere exclaimed. “People lose their minds over this shit. I don’t even know how they’re going to break that mess up.”

  Wren shrugged. “Doesn’t matter much to me. We’re out, safe, and on our way home. And it passed!”

  Jere forced a smile. He was glad it had passed, but any happiness he felt was overshadowed by what he had just witnessed. The few riots he had seen in Sonova had never ended in murder or torture. He put his arm around Wren’s waist, needing the closeness. Everyone who would oppose the gesture of affection was surely back in the riot, and besides, it was perfectly acceptable to “use” a slave like this. Jere was relieved to feel Wren’s warmth against his skin.

  They returned to the house quickly, nodding at the now-familiar police-
issued slave stationed outside the door, and coming inside where Isis was eagerly waiting for them.

  “Did we win?” she asked, ignoring any sort of social niceties.

  “Barely, but yes,” Wren informed her, smiling.

  “It was six to five, meaning that one person could have voted differently and it would have gone the other way. But it worked, and it’s law now, so no more public beatings, or killings, and we’re going to see an increase at the clinic, hopefully.”

  “Hopefully?” Isis asked.

  “Well, some people might just opt not to take their slaves anywhere for medical treatment,” Wren observed. “It’s a risk, but then, there’s also the ‘no intentional killing’ clause.”

  “If the master is just going to let their slave die of illness because they’re too fucking mean to take them to a doctor, they’d probably be better off dying anyway,” Isis decided. “I wished so many times for someone to just let me expire. Assholes never did.”

  Wren nodded his agreement, and Jere looked at both of them with barely concealed horror in his eyes. Jere wasn’t about to argue, because Wren and Isis had both expressed those very same wishes to him when he first acquired each of them, but it was still rather unsettling to hear it discussed in such casual terms.

  “Well, let’s just hope most of them make it here,” he mumbled, trying to hide his discomfort. He could still smell burning flesh, whether it was real or not. It seemed etched into his senses, the same way as the horrors he had witnessed were etched into his memory.

  “Silly outlander,” Isis teased. “Slave state riots are always bloody. Lots of property damage makes a statement. But free people in slave states are good at following laws; they’ve been doing it their whole lives. The new laws will change things, I mean, once they pass. And until then, we can stay at home.”

  Isis was blunt, but Jere had no doubt that she had seen a riot or two in her life, or at least heard about one. She and Wren both seemed pleased by the results, if not the process, and Jere tried to see it like they did. It was just hard to think of a pile of dead, tortured humans as property damage. For once, he approved of Isis’s chosen method of handling problems. Hiding seemed like an excellent idea.

  The three of them busied themselves preparing the clinic for the injured that were sure to be on their way. As they did, they pondered what the passage of the SRA could mean for the clinic, and for Hojer, and for them.

  “Maybe one day we won’t have to even think about running across the border,” Isis mused. “Maybe it’ll be like... okay here, or maybe it will be easier to leave.”

  “Like being allowed to free slaves?” Jere asked, considering it. It would make everything so much easier. He could consider tolerating living here if he could have Wren and Isis freed, allowing them at least some sort of legal protection.

  “Or being able to move out of state with them,” Wren suggested. “Slaves are property in this state; fine. But you can move out of state with a couch, or a set of silverware, you should be able to move out of state with a slave as well.”

  “And then once you get to another state, then they’d be free,” Jere nodded. “Damn, I want to see that happen before I die.”

  “We’re taking the first steps,” Wren reminded him. “I don’t know whether it will ever happen, but as Kieran loves to point out, this is progress toward the cause.”

  Jere nodded. “It really is. I never even thought we’d get this far.”

  As they talked, reveling in their small victory and hoping for the future, Jere felt an intense presence in his mind, only moments before hearing a harsh, rapid knocking at the door.

  It was Paltrek, and unlike his usual careless self, he sounded miserable and angry and sad. “Help her, Jere. Do whatever you can.”

  Confused by the message and the knocking at the door, Jere got up and answered. It was proper for Wren to answer, but given the threats and the strained political situation, they had decided that he would stay away from the door as often as possible. Jere wondered what Paltrek was so upset about, but he assumed it was family issues. He opened the door without concern, eager to tell his friend about the success of the SRA. While Paltrek hadn’t been active in any of the campaigning, he had supported Jere. As much as the riot had been awful, Jere was starting to accept the upside, to feel like he had done the right thing.

  The sight in front of him crushed any of the happiness he had just been feeling.

  Dane stood there, the tattered remains of Arae’s body cradled in his arms.

  “Help her. Please.”

  Jere stood in the doorway in shock for just a few more seconds. He knew this was a possibility; the atrocities he had watched during the riot had made that very clear. But it wasn’t supposed to harm someone he knew. He had taken inventory of the people he cared about; he thought everyone was okay. He didn’t want to believe it, but there was no denying the effects that the SRA had caused. The few minutes of cautious success he had felt crumbled when faced with the reality on his doorstep.

  “Please, Doctor Peters, please!” Dane begged, sobbing as he shoved his way into the house, pushing Arae’s charred and dismembered body toward him.

  “What happened?” Jere forced the words out through his throat, even though it felt like it was about to close up on him.

  “Mistress Annika,” Dane sobbed. “She cut her and burned her and beat her and did everything... please help her!”

  Wren responded before Jere had a chance to do more than stand there in shock. Wren was on his feet, helping Dane and Arae to the clinic, where he instructed Dane to lay the girl on an exam table. Jere followed blindly. He had distanced himself, barely, from the slaves he saw being tortured on the street. Seeing someone he knew reminded him just how real this was, and how wrong. He had seen things like this in emergency rooms before; he had done a rotation that had coincided with a massive building collapse and subsequent fire, resulting in hundreds of people losing limbs and lives and being burned over massive percentages of their bodies. But that had been a disaster, a terrible mistake of engineering. Jere knew that this was no mistake. This had been done intentionally; each of the wounds had been inflicted by hand or with a weapon. By the looks of it, Arae had been alive and conscious for most of it.

  With a shudder, he placed his hand on her burned flesh, seeking any sign of life or hope. When he didn’t detect it, he moved his hands to her head, cringing as he came in contact with the patches where hair had clearly been ripped out in chunks. He closed his eyes against the tears that were forming, and tried to find any sign of life to make a connection with.

  “I don’t think she’s—”

  “No! You have to help her!” Dane screamed, dropping to the floor and begging him to save his sister’s life. “You have to, please! You can’t just let her die! You’re a healer! You can fix her! Please, fix her.”

  Jere doubted it, but he was willing to try. His medical ethics demanded it, and his affection for Dane demanded it even more. With great reluctance, he pushed his way into what was left of her psychic energy, which was fading with every second.

  The dream-states of the recently dead were one of the most terrifying things Jere had ever experienced, and he had fortunately only experienced it twice before in his life. Usually, it was during a risky surgery, and he could feel the patient slipping away with him there, the dream-state being ripped away from him, as if the walls around him were suddenly disappearing and leaving him hopeless and bare. This was different. From the moment he entered, he was thrust into nothingness. While entering a person’s mind for mind-healing often had a detached feeling associated with it, entering the mind of someone in this state was like falling, faster and faster, with nothing to hold on to, nothing to guide or ground himself with. Jere’s stomach churned and he tried in vain to find something to latch on to, a residual heartbeat, a flicker of a brainwave, anything.

  He found nothing.

  He struggled to even locate her organs, the faint traces of psychic energy gui
ding his healing gift to where they should be, but leaving him cold and empty, like everything else. He fought, he struggled, but all he could ascertain was that she had been dead for many, many minutes. As quickly as Dane must have carried her here, her body still warm before cooling down to match outside temperatures, she was likely dead before he even picked her up. Jere kept trying, pushing his healing gift to the maximum strength that he had possibly ever used it at once, but there was nothing left to heal. A healer’s gift depended on life and energy, and when there were neither of these things, his gift was utterly useless. Bringing Arae back to life would be as futile as bringing the exam table to life.

  Utterly crushed, Jere fought his way back to reality, emerging and gagging as he did. He was happy to leave the horrors that he had experienced, but it left a stain on his own psychic energy, the same way that touching a dead thing might leave bacteria on one’s skin.

  He pulled back, horrified by it all, and what was worse, he had to look at Dane and break the news to him.

  The look on his face must have done it, because Dane crumpled into a broken mess. “No,” he kept repeating. “No, I didn’t let her die, I didn’t let her die!”

  Wren looked at Jere, a desperate, hopeful look on his face. Jere just shook his head, sadly. “I’m so sorry,” he managed, and he wasn’t even sure who he was apologizing to. Dane? Arae? Himself? It didn’t matter, because no amount of healing and no amount of apology was going to fix any of this. “She’s too far gone.”