Free Mandate by Viola Grace

Chapter One
     
     
    Wren Silverberg waited as the final shovel of dirt landed on the coffin of her former patient. Emily Thacker Smithwick was gone and Wren had been missing her for a week.
    “Ms. Silverberg, you should leave now. I will meet you in the transport momentarily.” Recruiter Norz smiled at her and showed the deadly teeth that didn’t disturb her as much as it first had a month ago.
    She nodded and headed for the transport with the glares of the Smithwick family following her.
    They had hired her to care for Emily but seemed to think that hiring a caregiver would impart immortality to the woman who had passed the century mark. All Wren had been able to do was keep Emily fed and entertained. She had done her utmost to make Emily’s life happy, and the moment that she passed, her family had kicked Wren out of the house and stopped payment on her final paycheck.
    It was simply Emily’s own devious planning that had given Wren the possibility of a new life elsewhere. Now, she waited for the man who had participated in her extrication to stop making the Smithwicks turn green, so that she could take her shuttle to the moon for training.
     
    * * * *
     
    Norz narrowed his eyes at the pasty and unpleasant Smithwicks. “Emily was an amazing woman, and she deserves better than the greedy, grasping gathering of offspring that stands before me.”
    “I beg your pardon.”
    Her eldest son, Jonathon, spluttered at the comment.
    Norz handed them a disk. “Here. Watch this and tell me what you think of the woman you have derided, degraded and who gave Emily bright and lively last days. She gave her all to her and you responded by ignoring her own grief and ejecting her from her home of the last five years.”
    Norz turned and left them to stare at the disk while he accompanied his bodyguards to the vehicle that held his newest recruit.
     
    * * * *
     
    The Smithwicks gathered around the screen and watched the video of Wren dealing with Emily’s temper with good humour, reading her stories, helping her with her email and keeping her in touch with her friends.
    Jonathon scowled, this was not what he expected to see based on the consistent lack of funds in his mother’s wallet.
    They watched clips of weeks of attendance and then came a quick pause when Jonathon Junior came in to speak to his mother.
    Jonathon looked at his son, and his fifty-year-old son was looking uncomfortable.
    The family watched as Wren left the room and Jonathon Junior immediately went to his grandmother’s wallet to withdraw all the cash. He tucked it into his own wallet, roused his grandmother from a nap and pretended he had just arrived.
    As the family watched the withdrawal of money and drugs repeated with four other family members, Wren simply kept purchasing the groceries with her own funds and didn’t stress Emily out with the knowledge that her family was stealing from her.
    After all of the displays, the screen flickered to black and then came back on with Emily’s smiling face front and center.
     
    “Hello all. If you are seeing this, then you were bigger jackasses than I had ever imagined. I asked Recruiter Norz to give the recordings to you only if you went after Wren. If you did, I am disgusted. Junior, I have known about you pilfering my wallet for years. Missy, Leonora, Deborah and Jonny, you are all idiots and my will has taken that into account.
    “You may wonder how this recording appeared, and to put it succinctly, I knew that you would not greet my passing with grace and I wanted Wren taken care of. She has brought life and joy back into my life while making me as comfortable as possible.
    “I had the Volunteer Project put scanners and monitors into my home to assess Wren, and they came up with the same judgement that I have. She is literally too good for this world. She needs to be appreciated somewhere and as far away from you as possible because you poison what you touch.
    “For better or worse, you are my legacy to