Chapter 1: One Bad Day
It seemed like a normal morning until Clara received a phone call that ended her life. She was in the home she shared with her parents, getting ready for a day at university.
At first she thought it was a wrong number, but the voice knew her name and private details.
"Ms Roselyn, this call is to inform you that the time to repay the owed amounts has expired," the voice on the call said. "You are now being summoned to appear before the court to answer for this delinquency and receive instruction on the next steps."
"But... I don't understand, what debts are we talking about? My stepfather's business is solvent again, as far as I know, and none of that was in my name anyway."
"These are the personal debts you have accrued on multiple credit cards and bank loans, Ms Roselyn. I am seeing figures of 45 000 on Visa, 65 000 on-"
"Well there must be a mistake, I've never had any credit cards."
"I see here we have sworn statements signed by you confirming that the debts are true and accurate, Ms Roselyn."
"WHAT?! Listen, this is some sort of mixup-"
"You will have the chance to present your argument to the judge. Your hearing is scheduled for 10am this morning."
"But I'm a university student, I have a lecture -"
"Failure to present yourself will result in a warrant being issued for your arrest. I suggest you be on time."
The call went dead.
Clara's appeal to her parents did not go as she had hoped.
"What?! Clara, I can't believe you would be so irresponsible!" Her stepfather, Greg, said at once.
"But I didn't! I-"
"I'm sorry I'm no longer able to provide the lifestyle you grew accustomed to," he interrupted, speaking as if his lines were rehearsed the way he always did when he talked over Clara or her mother. "But I would have hoped the last few years of hardship had instilled in you a sense of fiscal responsibility!"
"Greg, I'm trying to tell you -"
"I can't just wave a magic wand and get rid of this for you! Not anymore," he said, gesturing around their small apartment. "You know full well how much we've had to downsize-"
"I know, Greg!" She shouted, finally interrupting him. "I lived through it right with you! And I didn't do this! I wouldn't! They've made a mistake!"
"Clara, please don't shout at your stepfather," her mother said. "He's only trying to impress on you how serious this is. The consequences for this sort of thing are a lot more severe than they used to be."
"I know, that's why I would never have gone on some wild spending spree! Where would all this money have gone, anyway? Wouldn't you have noticed if I came home with a bunch of designer clothes or something?"
"You have been out awfully late at nights these days," her mother said. Greg nodded in agreement and put one hand on his wife's shoulder.
"Using the computers in the school library! Because we couldn't afford to get me a new laptop!"
"Not always, Clara," her mother admonished. "You've been partying as well, haven't you? You were never like this before."
"So what?! I'm nearly twenty years old, I can go to a party, and I don't have to check in with you every time. That's got nothing to do with this."
"But it certainly doesn't make it any easier to believe you," Greg said sternly.
"You... really don't believe me?"
.....................
The judge didn't believe her either.
"Given the quantities of money we are talking about, and the flagrant disregard the defendant showed for her ability, or lack of ability, to pay them back, I see no recourse but to grant her creditors' request that she be sold into servitude, and the payment be used to cover her debts."
Clara gaped. A single bang of a gavel, and her life was over. She would be made a slave.
A pair of guards led her from the courtroom to a holding cell. They said she would have to wait for a few hours until a bus arrived to transport her and several other new slaves to a processing center.
Clara heard what they said, but she could not acknowledge them. She felt numb, disconnected from the moment. She kept thinking about a Social Studies essay she had written when she was 15, when the slavery system was first being proposed. 'Slavery is and always has been the scourge of liberty,' had been the opening line. She'd always been proud of that. She had addressed and, she felt, demolished every argument in favour of the program. She had argued that no amount of fiscal irresponsibility meant someone deserved to have their autonomy taken away, that no state could be trusted to wield such a power impartially, and that the most vulnerable members of society were likely to suffer the most under the proposed system.
Lastly she had addressed the new technology that would be used to enforce slaves' obedience. Injecting someone with nanomachines against their will was already another violation of their right to autonomy. But the way the nanomachines would be programmed - forcing compliance by inflicting pain within the body whenever the slave disobeyed or ignored any order from their owners - was not only cruel and barbaric, it also made the most debasing forms of abuse against slaves not only inevitable but intended.
"The nanotechnology was created to cure injury, disease and impairment," she had said in her conclusion. "The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men (this was a quote from Charlie Chaplin's powerful speech against tyranny in his film The Great Dictator, a choice Clara's teacher had called inspired). Proposing to use such an incredible technology to uphold the most primitive and vile of institutions will prove, one must hope, to be only the passing of greed."
The teacher had encouraged Clara to send it to their Member of Parliament, and she had. The Member's office sent back Clara a letter thanking her for her interest and promising that the Member would consider the opinions of everyone in the electorate.
But he voted yes anyway, and the proposal had become law. Clara had been appalled, but in the distant sort of way she was appalled at the atrocities committed in distant countries. Her thought had been "I feel so sorry for them."
But now Clara was them.
The bus ride was uneventful. None of her three fellow prisoners spoke, though two of them sobbed quietly at times.
Clara noticed they were all women.
She was led inside and bade to sit in front of the desk of a middle-aged female process worker who read her a long prepared statement in a robotic voice. She was told what her rights were (basically none), what her new responsibilities would be (whatever her owner decided) and how long the period of servitude would last (probably the rest of her life). She heard all of it and none of it.
Can't be real,
she kept thinking.
Not me
.
Of course it's real, and you just let it happen
