Even disguised as Uari, Caera felt her heart pound loudly in her ears as she hammered on the door. She never visited Wren specifically because she didn't want to run into this woman, and her body still remembered vividly the amount of abuse it had been put through the last time she was here.
Calm down. Calm down. She self-soothed as best as she could. She heard no footsteps, but the door opened to reveal an elderly woman wearing a beatific smile. Dark skin glinted in the sunlight and off the sharpness of her eyes, surveying her entire body and behind her.
"Yes, dear? I've never seen you around here before. How can I help you?"
Caera channelled Uari as best as she could. "Doctor Johnson?"
"Yes, m'dear, that's me, but how did you know?" Caera couldn't miss the suspicion in her eyes even if she wanted to.
"Caera Han told me about you. She said you might be able to help me."
Stupidly, she hadn't been able to come up with a different introduction. The expression on Doctor Johnson's face didn't change outwardly, but she sensed an increase in tension as Doctor Johnson furrowed her brows.
"I don't know anyone like that." her tone was filled with an immediate and profound rage, and the barrel of a gun was suddenly being levelled at him through the gap in the door.
A bead of sweat rolled down her back—well, Uari's back.
Caera and Callan had sought refuge with Doctor Johnson when they hadn't known anything about this new world.
She had been the only one kind enough to offer them food to eat and a place to stay. In exchange, both had agreed to work with her at the small clinic to ensure that Wren would continue have medical care when she was gone, old as she was.
They had been her trainees and successors for all of eight months before Uari showed up and convinced them to go with him so they could return to their original universe.
The falling out regarding their departure was so massive that Doctor Johnson, who had an immense amount of say in Wren as their only resident medical practitioner, had unilaterally banned them from Wren. Any time Caera or Callan attempted to even approach their borders was met with incredible hostility from its citizens, who generally recognised their faces and responded to their departure as a perceived betrayal.
As much as Doctor Johnson was a doctor, she was a doctor in the middle of one of the worst slums in Southernland, with everything that title implied. If Caera wasn't careful, she would find herself full of unwanted holes.
The gunmetal glinted in the sweltering heat of Wren.
"Caera said," Caera took a deep breath. "She said to please hear me out and not to judge me by her actions."
She prayed this would appeal to Doctor Johnson's fun-filled 'do no harm unless they intend harm' philosophy.
Doctor Johnson's icy stare could have carved a line in the metal sheets. Caera tamped down a shiver.
Finally, finally, she snarled. "Talk." The gun did not waver from its position.
Caera almost cried with relief. Doctor Johnson would at least hear her out. It helped that she was in Uari's skin instead of her own, she supposed. She voiced her request as succinctly as possible before Doctor Johnson could change her mind.
"I need Wren to have a minor civil war."
Doctor Johnson's eyes narrowed in fury. "You come here—"
"Ten billion Geeglecoins with which to better the medical and social services in Wren, as well as other necessary architecture based on what you believe is best for Wren's development."
Caera marvelled at the way Doctor Johnson's entire being paused.
They would never have come without an offer. If they needed something, it was only right that they pay for it, especially if the idea of earning that money became the motivation instead of other fluffy ideals like love or freedom.
Money made the world go around, and nowhere more so than the filthy streets of Wren.
Ten billion Geeglecoins could set the sewage systems. It could set up basic governmental foundations and social services. It could draw beginning talent to establish the foundations of a solid economy and begin to make plans for how Wren could flourish.
Caera knew what Doctor Johnson valued most.
Doctor Johnson wasn't that easily swayed, however. She disappeared from the gap in the door, which grew fractionally wider.
A silent invitation to come inside for additional discussions.
Caera stepped in. The little clinic shack wasn't that much different from when she had stayed here before: an examination table, a desk, several worn tools meticulously kept clean, and a cabinet of cheap medication.
They sat at a rickety metal table that screeched with every movement, joints aching for oil. Doctor Johnson did not offer her (him?) anything and merely sat at the other end, waiting for her to open her mouth.
Before Caera began her carefully-rehearsed speech, a ping dropped by. Aiam Adhick.
There were missing people in Wren. Instead of what she meant to say, she began there instead.
"Four people have gone missing in Wren recently, right?"
Perhaps it might not have mattered to another resident, but this was Doctor Johnson, who made an effort to keep track of almost every resident if only for the sake of their health.
Caera had at first wondered how she did it, and realised it was just pure effort on Doctor Johnson's part. Thousands of Wren residents and Doctor Johnson did her best to remember each and every one.
Of course she would know if anyone went missing.
"Four?" Doctor Johnson's dangerous tone tilted forward pleasantly.
Caera realised her mistake far too late. The fourth had only gone missing recently. Doctor Johnson might not have known, so how would they know?
She fought desperately to think of a way to get through to the doctor before she was shot at. Metal Guts wouldn't help here. "We know who did it!"
Her blurted reply, thankfully, gave some pause. "We—we're trying to stop them! We found out, and we need your help with this. We don't condone it!"
"Who," Doctor Johnson's deceivingly pleasant tone was near-glacial, "is 'we', exactly?"
Aw, she fucked up. She fucked up real bad. Uari was never going to let her live this down—