“I hear you,” he said, recovering. “What do you feel is lacking in your community, if not public transportation?”
“We could use a rail to ride out snotty politicians on,” the man joked.
A few others laughed and stomped their feet.
“I wish my husband could get his treatments here,” a woman said quietly.
Ba’sh ignored the others and jogged over to her, holding out the mic.
Her pain washed over him, making him almost weak in the knees.
“Byrt has a cosmic lax mutation,” the woman said quietly. “His case is serious, so he had to be transported to the city for treatments, but my work is here and so is the girls’ school. I wish he could be home with us.”
“Chayster has the same,” another woman put in. “Why can’t we have decent clinics here?”
“Yeah, if you people are so concerned about lax mutations why don’t you send us doctors?” a man holding a sign to his chest asked. “Seems like we could use actual medical centers rather than a lot of fancy real estate deals.”
Ba’sh turned to Yasmine, his heart pounding with excitement.
Her eyes were luminous. This is why we came here, she seemed to be telling him.
“Easy folks,” the fancy suit man said angrily. “Seems to me that a lot of you don’t understand the cost of such facilities. Besides which, they seldom generate tax revenue. Government built clinics are often non-profit.”
The wave of greed from the man and the resulting tsunami of furious backlash to his words had Ba’sh reeling. His head began to pound along with throb of real hostility surging in the air.
“If I may, My Ruler,” Yasmine said. “Why don’t you sit where everyone can address you, and I’ll just dash around with the mic?”
She pointed him to the furthest stool at the counter.
He handed her the mic and practically staggered over as she made her way into the crowd.
As soon as he was farther from the source of the anger, his head cleared a bit.
On the campaign trail, he hadn’t been right in the middle of live gatherings like this during arguments over hot button issues. He was going to need an even more powerful circlet if he planned to do more of these tours. Hopefully, he hadn’t completely blown today’s meeting.
But when he turned, he saw that Yasmine was already headed for a man with his hand up.
Everyone seemed less hostile when she approached, as if they knew instinctively that the sweet girl with the dark hair respected them and truly wanted to listen.