Work Text:
Eileen Leahy woke up every morning at 5:00 am, to the slow blinking of her sunrise alarm clock which, unfortunately, did not have a snooze button. Breakfast was coffee and buttered toast, maybe yogurt if she hadn’t eaten much the day before and needed the extra protein. A quick shower, hair pulled back, clothes set out the night before. By 6:30 she was out the door, on the eastbound bus for 30 minutes, then the northbound for another 45, so she arrived at work at 7:45, a full 15 minutes before they opened.
Every day, the line of people outside the door stretched down the stairs. On Mondays and Fridays, it tended to stretch around the courtyard.
At 8:00 am, the Office of Enslaved Peoples (OEP), a subsidiary of the Municipal Clerk’s Office of Spokane, Washington, opened, and Eileen Leahy’s work began.
Five years ago, if you had asked Eileen what she thought her work as an undercover abolitionist might look like, she would have responded: nothing like this. Back then, a year into her associates degree, her main forms of resistance still included attending the occasional protest on the campus quad, boycotting businesses with known ties to slavers, and slipping ‘safety cards’ to anyone she saw with a collar. When, after a particularly brutal clash with the campus and local police, she was invited by some fellow protestors to a meeting of the local abolition syndicate, her mind was filled with fantasies of violence. Breaking in and out of the brothels, cutting electric fences, tampering with collars, making a scene every time someone ‘corrected’ their slave in public, tasers and mace and martial arts, real spy shit, you know? Let the owners get disciplined for once, maybe even stick a collar on them, see how they fucking like it.
Only, the abolitionists she met with weren’t really interested in that. There were other groups that were, and they offered to put her in contact with them, but then they started to really explain it to her - that nine times out of ten those types of actions were high risk, low reward, that you got maybe one or two people a moment, a few days of relief tops before you and them were so bogged down by legal trouble that you couldn’t resurface for years.
No, the abolitionists she met with weren’t interested in violence. They were focused on infiltration .
A graphic designer from the local art school to make them fake IDs, along with any other documentation they might need. A coder to set up their alias’ internet history. A line of cell phones, with masking tape labels indicating which ‘reference’ to answer as - those were handled by a few actors from the local guild, who kept meticulous notes on their ‘characters’, each phone answered with a different voice, a different personality. She hadn’t actually met any of them - she only met with one or two others from the cell; they tried to keep contact between members at a minimum, everyone always on blockers, even the betas like her, so if anyone got caught they couldn’t bring down the whole operation.
Yeah, real spy shit.
So, a few months after she got that two year degree, Eileen Leahy disappeared.
Around that time, a one Marlene O’Grady got a job in the file room at the Municipal Clerk’s Office.
She was a good employee - always on time, rarely took sick days, quiet and efficient at her work. The Clerk’s Office had a fairly generous margin of error when it came to filing, but O’Grady’s forms never went missing, were filed correctly and without delay. In the months she was employed there, there was only one major incident - when the employees returned from their winter holidays and found that a growing family of mice had set up shop in the part of the office where they kept the pre-printed, tracked forms. Most forms filed with the Clerk’s Office could be printed from their website, filled out, and brought in for application. A few, such as speciality business licenses, confidential record release requests, council motions and emancipation processing packets, were printed on special, water-marked pages and were carefully counted, each with their own listed tracking numbers, so that they couldn’t easily be replicated.
Unfortunately, due to the mice infestation and the plethora of droppings they left behind, the Clerk’s Office had to toss several boxes of said pre-printed forms.
Marlene O’Grady graciously took care of the issue.
All in all, she was a wonderful employee, and it wasn’t long before her superiors offered her a public-facing position, wherein she became one of ten general clerks, who from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday, accepted forms from the public, assisted those who needed direction in which forms to fill out, notarized what needed notarizing and set appointments with the specialized form clerks for anyone in need of assistance with the more in-depth filing and registration services the city offered.
After a full year of working as a general clerk, one of the niche clerks retired - something to do with her husband receiving a rather substantial worker’s compensation award, though the rumors around the office were that he’d played up the whole thing and no one was quite sure how he’d managed to get away with it. In any case, Marlene O’Grady was offered the position of the specialized clerk for the city’s OEP, complete with a bronze name plaque on the desk of her private office. It wasn’t much - the Clerk’s Office was located in the basement of city hall, with no windows to speak of, but it was a salaried position - she could take lunch breaks as she saw fit, and close the door if she wanted some privacy for her clients.
The OEP was one of the smallest branches of the Clerk’s Office - their manager also oversaw the Office of Environmental Quality and the Office of Regulated Industries. In addition to Marlene, the clerk, there were three other employees in the OEP: the Orientation and Education Specialist, who worked with the local training facilities to ensure compliance with all the necessary ordinances and provide recommendations for placement, along with handling any public statements and educational presentations from the office; the Enforcement Officer, who worked closely with the local police to handle any slave-specific complaints and legal issues; and the secretary, who fielded all the calls to the office, directing them to the correct employee as well as managing everyone’s calendars and submitting any necessary paperwork to the City Clerk Office’s accounting and HR departments. The other three employees, along with the general manager, had been working in the OEP for several years together - they had an established rapport, one which O’Grady did not disturb. As always, she did her job well and without fuss. And if Spokane County began to see a gradual decrease in the number of newly registered slaves, at the same time it began to experience a gradual increase in the number of newly freed peoples - well, no one really asked many questions about what went on in the basement of the City Clerk Office.
It was a Thursday afternoon when it happened.
She’d already had 10 appointments throughout the morning - three local heads of household trying to get registered as owners to whom she’d politely fed every last pedantic requirement under city code until they left the office with their heads spinning; two traders submitting paperwork for their latest ‘acquisitions’ - those, unfortunately, tended to be much harder to give the runaround, as they were more accustomed to the ins and outs of the system, and she typically had to resort to misfilings and misplaced paperwork when she could get away with it. There were three emancipation paperwork requests - those were where she shone, filling the packets with post-it notes and recommendations on how to proceed, the names of local employers who would hire freed slaves, the address and phone number for the therapist’s office they knew would secure a passed risk assessment, along with whatever other resources the individual in question might need. She always included her card - “Please, any questions at all, please just ask.” One appointment was a no-show, and the other she survived - if the owner could sense the cold, detached disposition that settled over her he made no comment, and she was proud that her hand barely shook when he handed over the ‘Formal Dissolution’ form, complete with a hastily filled out death certificate from the local coroner’s office, the cause of death listed as ‘accidental’ with no further specification.
She broke for lunch after that.
Before, when she still worked as one of the general clerks, she would regularly grab a sandwich or soup from the deli across the street. However, the first time she went there after her promotion, with the name badge hanging from a lanyard around her neck - Marlene O’Grady, File Clerk, Office of Enslaved Peoples - she caught sight of the cook through the kitchen window - some college aged kid, and she watched as he spit in her soup before handing it out to the cashier, who passed it on to her with a cold smile.
She’d asked for a to-go container instead, tossed the soup in the trash on the way back to her office, and always brought her lunch from home after that.
So, 1:00 pm on this particular Thursday found Eileen sitting in her office, door cracked so she wouldn’t have to watch her colleagues swapping war stories about their field work, mindlessly playing with the bit of celery that had fallen from her chicken salad sandwich and trying very, very hard not to imagine all the different things ‘accidental’ could mean.
She jumped when the door pushed open further, their assistant, Jeffrey, poking his head in.
“Your one o’clock’s here,” he said gesturing over his shoulder, and Eileen nodded, crumpling the paper towel she’d used as a plate for her sandwich into the trash.
“I’m ready, thanks,” she said, wiping a few spare crumbs off her desk.
It was another emancipation paperwork request, and right off the bat, something felt wrong about it, but she couldn’t put her finger on what.
“Ms. O’Grady.” The owner crossed the room in two strides, holding out a hand for her to shake as his slave settled, kneeling, next to the door.
Her first ever emancipation paperwork appointment, she’d tried telling the slave they needn’t kneel, not here, but the slave had simply nodded at the floor, with a “Yes ma’am,” while the owner had stared at her like she was insane.
She hadn’t pushed after that.
“Please, call me Marlene.”
The owner let a surprised grin cross his face, and then clapped his hands together, settling in the chair across from her. She tried not to assume, but something about this man - his posture, the long pair of canines pinching his lip - it all screamed alpha. Still, there was no scent - even as a beta she was usually pretty good at picking up on them - but here, both owner and slave simply smelled dull, neutral.
“Well, all right then.” The owner nodded at the packet on her desk. “Marlene. I’ve heard this is quite the process - is that true?”
“It can be. There are numerous factors that go into the emancipation process, but they’re easy to account for if you know where to go.”
“Is that so?” He was staring at her with a shrewd kind of smile, and Eileen had to swallow down the unsettled feeling in her stomach, most likely left over from her pre-lunch appointment, or possibly the chicken salad might have gone bad.
She didn’t linger on the thought.
“First off, there’s a $200 filing fee - I know it’s steep, but there are a number of organizations, local and national, that accept applications for financial assistance for any fees incurred throughout this entire process.” She listed a few, pressing the post-it on the page of the packet detailing payment options.
“The basic demographic information and enslavement history should be in your buyer’s paperwork - those are easy enough to transcribe, and your slave can most likely help you fill in any missing information.”
It was incredible, how many people came in wanting to know how they could fill that portion out if part of the slave’s file was missing, who were surprised when Eileen politely pointed out that they could try asking the person who had, you know, lived through the actual experience detailed in the file.
“For the education portion, there are two components - general education and a separate literacy exam. Those you’ll need to sign up for through the community college - they only offer the test periods once a month, and there are a limited number of seats available, so you’ll want to make sure you’re prepared, and show up ahead of time - they won’t let your slave sit for the exam if you’re late.” On this post-it, she wrote out the website that had practice exams and recommended readings, along with the number for her contact in scheduling at the college.
Eileen looked up briefly, and saw the owner had turned, head over his shoulder, and was saying something to his slave. It was too quiet for her hearing aid to pick up, his face too obscured for her to read his lips. She frowned, waiting, until he turned back.
“Sorry about that,” he said, with a shrug. “Carry on.”
“Next is, um, employment. You have three options for that requirement - a GED or HSE, a specialized certificate or, and this one’s the most likely to count in your favor, a formal job offer. You’d actually be surprised how many businesses there are in the area that are willing to hire the formerly enslaved - I can list a few recommendations, if you know of an area of work your slave is interested in?”
She’d tried, before, asking the slaves themselves, but it was generally the same reaction as it had been with the kneeling. Once, she’d actually had an owner chew her out, accusing her of trying to trick their slave into disobeying in public and get them taken away.
She hadn’t addressed the slaves directly after that.
This owner simply shrugged, and Eileen frowned again.
“Well, I’ll put down some numbers for general employment, and if you figure out something more specific I’d be happy to provide additional recommendations.”
She flipped past the medical history pages, those requesting proof of vaccinations, disease screenings, etc, explaining as she went that anything missing from there could be filled in by a primary care physician, or even an urgent care doctor. And, finally...
“Now, I know this last part sounds scary, but it’s really not so bad. Yes, the psych eval and risk assessment have to be performed by a licensed therapist, but there are several in the area who have a consistent track record of providing passing assessments to slaves. I can - ”
Eileen looked up, and faltered, because she finally realized what felt so off about this entire appointment.
The slave was looking at her.
Even in the beginning, back when she used to try talking to them, engaging them - even with the most liberal owners, who insisted they just couldn’t bear the pain of harming another person like this anymore - the slaves never looked at her. At most, they might look up from the floor and fix their gaze on her shoulder, or maybe some point on the wall behind her. But they never - not once, not even in passing -
“Um.” Eileen swallowed, and the slave stared. “I can - I can give you some numbers.”
She tore her gaze away, willing the sandwich in her stomach to stay down as she outlined their local mental health contacts.
“You might - they might need some time to fit you in but, usually they can.”
She had lost her steam, and her place, and was feeling thoroughly unsettled when she finally closed the packet.
“Do you - do you have any questions?”
“Just one.” The owner smiled at her, his teeth sharp. “Did you know, Ms. O’Grady, that slave emancipation rates have gone up 14% in Spokane County in the last three years?”
When she’d first joined the syndicate, and they’d outlined their plan for embedding her in the system, one of the things Eileen had to do before they set her up with her new identity was participate in what her fellow abolitionists referred to as ‘exposure’.
Essentially, it went like this.
She and a few others would set up at a picnic table, or a train station, or a food court, or any other crowded, public place they could find, and for a few hours, they would sit there. And just watch. All those small moments of humiliation, and degradation, and dehumanization, which even added up across hours, across days, couldn’t come close to the full experience of the life of a slave.
But it was as close as they could get, so they watched, and they practiced not flinching, biting their tongues, letting all the sick smells of fear and pain and dread wash over them, observing and not reacting and not looking away. Sometimes they would go to the junkyard after, and tear through whatever they could get their measly hands on, and cry, and scream. But during the day, during those moments, they practiced being statues.
So, Eileen knew how not to react when an owner backhanded their slave in her presence, or laughed about how stupid they were, or crinkled up their nose at the disease screening, because the bitch has been sick for years , do you have any idea how much treatment for this shit is? She practiced long before she became Marlene O’Grady, and she’d been practicing every day since.
But.
No one had ever made her practice for this.
Eileen knew she’d gone pale, she could feel that the blood had drained from her face, and they were looking at her, both of them.
“I - ”
“Actually,” the slave began, “it’s not just the emancipation rates. Registration of new slaves has been steadily declining during the same time frame.”
The owner reached across Eileen’s desk, swiping the emancipation packet up and dropping a small, plain business card in its place.
“How long have you been working here again?”
Eileen didn’t answer. She was staring down at the rectangular bit of card stock, the words Walt Lennarson, Review Officer, Federal Bureau of ATFS printed in big block letters across the center.
“C’mon, Roy. We gotta talk to the manager before we head out.”
Eileen’s hearing aid barely picked up the words, barely registered the sight of the owner - not an owner, a review officer , helping his colleague to his feet before they disappeared from her doorway.
She had no idea how long she’d been sitting there when her manager walked in, and everything snapped back into place.
“George,” she stood up, “I have no idea what they said to you - ”
“Eileen, it’s fine,” he said, closing the door behind him, and Eileen was about to argue, but then his words registered, and her face drained of blood for the second time that day.
“What - what did you call me?” she all but whispered, and George flinched.
“Oh, um - ”
“That’s - that’s not my - ”
“No, shit, um - God, God speaks to each of us as he makes us.”
Eileen stared.
She knew, intellectually, that she needed to finish the stanza, to recite the next line of the poem some romantic higher up in their syndicate had picked as a way for them to identify each other in the field, but right now, her brain wasn’t quite following.
“Are you - ” she said.
“ Then walks …” prompted her boss, who she’d just seen laughing with the Enforcement Officer the other day about a slave trying to submit a complaint. “Come on, Eileen, you have to finish it.”
“Oh my fucking god,” Eileen said, and grabbed the trashcan, and her chicken salad sandwich came back up with a vengeance.
“Ok.” George, that’s not his real name, she thought wildly, was patting her back awkwardly as she crouched over the trash can, spitting up bile. “That’s all right, you’re all right.”
“They’re gonna fire me.”
“Probably.”
“They might have enough to sue me.”
“Now, Eileen - ”
“Fuck, all the forms I’ve signed off on, are they all gonna go back under review?”
“If they try to pull that, we’ll sue them right back.”
“We don’t have that kind of money!”
“Well, we - ”
“Oh fuck, he took the packet, all our contacts - ”
“Eileen, breathe .”
He pressed a glass of water into her hands, and she drank it, swishing the taste of bile from her cheeks and spitting into the trash can, and trying to remember to breathe in-between.
“Ok,” he started.
“What’s your name?”
“Jerry.” He held out his hand, and she took it without thinking. “Panowski.”
“Jerry,” she said.
“Eileen.”
“Ok.”
“They’re starting a formal review.”
“ Fuck .”
“You’ll most likely be fired. They do still think you’re Marlene O’Grady, but who knows how long that’ll stand up under scrutiny. If that gets out, things are definitely going to escalate.”
“All those people.” Eileen was staring, at that spot by the door, at the folded up blanket she’d placed there three years ago when she moved in, at the twin indents that had been molded into it day after day. “Everyone I signed off on.”
“It’s not gonna come to that.”
“You just said - ”
“ Listen . If they sue, any decisions like that will be made after the case is decided.”
“But we don’t - the syndicate couldn’t even afford to get me a bus pass when I started, there’s no way - ”
“You know Donna?”
Eileen knew Donna. Donna was a beat cop who had only recently transferred from a small town in Minnesota, who glared daggers at the Enforcement Officer every time he tried to ask her out on a date.
Eileen nodded.
“Ok, so Donna has a friend out in Seattle, works at a rehab center - ”
“You’re gonna tell ‘em I was on drugs?”
“What? No! No - a, a slave rehab center, it’s like a stopover before emancipation.”
Oh. That made more sense.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Eileen.” He had stopped patting her back, but now, hesitantly, he took her hand, and squeezed it. “They have money. And - and they have a lawyer.”