The Incident- Preview

Chapter 1

The patient was already crying when James Foster entered the exam room.

She was seated awkwardly on the edge of the vinyl-covered table, her blouse straining at the seams beneath the open hospital gown. The paper sheet beneath her was creased and torn in spots, clinging to the backs of her thighs. Her mascara had begun to run, pooling slightly beneath her lower lashes.

James ignored it.

“I read your chart,” he said, not looking up from the tablet. “You’ve had these complaints before?”

She nodded, sniffling. “Yes. It’s a sharp pain under the breast. And it’s getting worse. I—”

“It’s likely musculoskeletal,” James interrupted. He let the silence hang as he tapped a few notes onto the screen. “Common in, well, larger frames. Costochondritis. Nothing serious.”

She stared at him. “But I’ve had this for months. My mom died from inflammatory breast cancer and I—”

He let out a sharp sigh through his nose, not loud but unmistakably impatient. “Did you lose weight recently? Any trauma to the area? Have you even done a self-exam?”

“I try. It’s just hard to feel under—under—”

James stood abruptly. “Let me check. Lie back.”

The patient hesitated, her eyes darting to the door.

“It’s a standard palpation,” James said, already pulling on gloves. “I’ll be quick.”

She lay back slowly, her breathing shallow. Her skin was flushed. James reached out and began the exam without further warning.

He pressed too hard. Too casually. His gloved fingers moved in wide circles, rough and clinical but not detached enough. Not with the way his eyes flicked over the soft folds of her body. Not with the way his hand lingered a half-second too long on the underside of her breast.

She tensed. He felt it and withdrew his hand, but the damage was already done.

“All clear,” he muttered, peeling off the gloves. “Just inflammation. Ice and NSAIDs. I’ll have the attending sign off.”

She didn’t say anything. Just sat up slowly, pulling her blouse closed, trembling.

James left the room without looking back.


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Three days later, he was summoned to the Dean's office.

It wasn’t a scheduled evaluation or a procedural check-in. The message had come through the student portal, flagged high priority. When James arrived, a woman he didn’t recognize was waiting outside the office.

She was tall, immaculately dressed, and impossibly calm.

“James Foster?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“Come with me, please. Bring your ID.”

He hesitated. “Who are you?”

“We’re not meeting here. It’s been moved to a private review room. Please.”

She didn’t raise her voice, but it left no room for negotiation.

They walked in silence through two hallways and down an unfamiliar stairwell. The room they entered had no windows, no plaques. Just a single metal door with a biometric scanner and a keypad. She unlocked it with a thumbprint and a four-digit code.

Inside sat three people at a long table.

James recognized Dean Morley, but the other two were strangers. One was a man in a white coat and black-framed glasses, scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad. The other—

His stomach dropped.

It was her.

She was dressed differently now. Clean blouse, fitted navy blazer, silver pin on the lapel. Her makeup was precise, her posture rigid. She looked composed. Powerful.

James blinked. “Wait. What is this? Am I being expelled?”

Dean Morley gestured for him to sit. “Not quite.”

James sat slowly, eyes still fixed on the woman. “You’re on the board?”

“Chair of the Ethical Oversight Subcommittee,” she said. “Doctor Lena Avery.”

He swallowed.

“This isn’t a disciplinary hearing,” the man with the glasses said. “There will be no record in your file. No formal expulsion. What we’re offering is a chance for remediation. A private agreement.”

James blinked. “What kind of agreement?”

Dr. Avery folded her hands on the table. “You will participate in a long-term behavioral and physiological study. It is confidential, irreversible, and non-negotiable. Declining will result in immediate removal from the medical program and full report to national credentialing bodies.”

James stared. “You’re blackmailing me.”

“We’re offering you a way forward,” the man said flatly. “And a lesson.”

James looked around the room. “What kind of study?”

Dean Morley slid a thick packet across the table. The cover read: Experimental Protocol Acceptance Form – Subject 001-A.

“You’ll begin the regimen immediately,” Morley said. “Once you sign, you’re bound for the full term. Six months minimum. You may not opt out.”

“What’s the regimen?”

The man with glasses tapped a section of the packet. “Baseline alterations. Appetite calibration. Neurochemical modulation. Cosmetic adjustments.”

“Cosmetic?”

“S ide effects,” Dr. Avery said calmly. “Hair loss. Facial retention. Fatigue. Possibly some minor changes to metabolism. If weight gain begins, it will continue until equilibrium is reached.”

James’s mouth felt dry. “What kind of equilibrium?”

“Three hundred pounds,” she said. “No more, no less.”

He stared at her.

“You’re insane.”

She tilted her head. “You treated my body like it didn’t matter. You dismissed my pain because you thought I was weak. Now you’ll live in a body you cannot control. You’ll learn what helplessness feels like.”

James looked at Dean Morley. “You’re allowing this?”

“You forfeited standard review the moment you violated our patients’ trust,” Morley said. “We can’t stop you from walking out. But you’ll never practice medicine again if you do.”

James’s heart pounded. He looked down at the packet, hands trembling.

The contract was long. The type was small. But the signature line was unmistakable.

And so was the line above it: Subject voluntarily agrees to full physiological compliance, with known and unknown effects, until target range is confirmed.

He picked up the pen.

He didn’t think.

He signed.


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