Forfeiture

Nobody had been expecting a rate hike, but when the anxious crowd standing around the screen at the Battery grew, Saara knew something was terribly wrong. Faces went pale, there were tears and one co-worker bolted for the toilet. Saara felt something inside her plummet as she joined the viewers and watched as the news broke.

“…unexpected decision by the Monetary Policy Committee to raise interest rates by 3% is likely to cause major concern for many struggling to meet debt payments; although the Prime Minister has stated the move was vital for the Economy and has expressed confidence that the British people are ‘hard workers who will do what is necessary’. In a statement this morning the head of…”

Saara felt sick. In short order the Creditors would raise their interest rates in response to the Bank of England’s statement, and then…

She tried to get on with her work, but couldn’t. That morning’s job was to proliferate the story across social media that the leader of the Reds had been accused of assaulting his godson. As far as Saara could tell there was no godson, but it was up to her and her hundred or so colleagues in the Battery to create one. But all she could think about were her birth loan repayments. Most babies were saddled with debt worth the price of a good suburban family house the moment they left the womb – not that virtually anyone owned their own houses anymore – but her payments were higher on the basis that her parents had not met her minority payments since their disappearance. So the arrears were tacked on to her adult debt at a stinging premium. Recent spats with her landlord over a leaking shower head had provoked him into docking her already poor credit score, pushing up the margin on her debt. She was barely managing her payments as it was, but with a rate hike, she would be in default within the month. And what came after default did not bear thinking about.

“It really irritates me,” Kate beside her said. “People whinging about their payments. If you are a responsible adult, you make your payments. Simple.”

Saara tried to bite her tongue, but failed. That morning, Kate had come in with the boss, wearing the same clothes as the day before. “So are you a responsible adult when you’re not even a day old and you’re put into more debt than you can pay back in a lifetime?”

Kate sniffed. “It’s appropriate,” she declared. “It covers the state’s costs for providing you with your life, and the freedom to do what you like.”

“Freedom. Even though you basically can’t do anything except work till you die whilst also paying taxes and rent on top?”

But Kate was undeterred. “Big debt incentivises people to work hard and innovate,” she parroted.

Feeling her temper flaring, Saara was tempted to reply but thought better of it.

“I need more hours,” she asked of the boss, a short balding man eating sunflower seeds out of a bag.

“You’re already on fifty.” He cracked a seed between his teeth.

“I need more. I worked night shifts and double-shifts all last month. You said I’d get more hours in return.”

“Did I?” he scoffed. “That’s your job. You aren’t doing me a favour by working night shifts.”

“What about Kate?” Saara asked, unable to hold herself back. “You gave her an extra ten. What favours has she been doing you?”

That did it. Saara found herself skulking home through Shadwell, hands in jacket pockets, out of a job. Why can’t I keep my mouth shut, she thought. In the distance, the City’s skyscrapers vanished up into the mist. Looking at her newly adjusted debt payments, she would have needed her existing hours plus half again just to meet them. Instead, she had no hours, and only half a bag of pasta in the cupboard and a nub of butter in the fridge. Given that her boss happened to also be her landlord, she was lucky she still had a place to stay. Where will I find the rent though? She tried one of her neighbours in the communal flat, a pious lady with a four year old boy and a piercing stare.

“I don’t lend money,” Suruchi informed her coldly, stroking her boy’s hair with both hands. “But pray to God and He shall surely deliver.”

Great, Saara thought as she returned to her tiny room. She sunk down onto her bed, tears brimming in her eyes. In less than a month, she would default and end up on the streets. They say in London you’re always within eight metres of a rat or a Castout. They also say you never see the same Castout more than three times. If they didn’t fall prey to exposure or hungriness, they became easy sport for the militias – the ‘Private Security Agencies’, as their suited employers termed them. Not that the police had any complaints about some missing Castouts, on the contrary. It looked great on the stats. As her cheeks grew wet, Saara fingered the plastic heart locket around her neck. Where were her parents now? Her father had bought her the locket from a vending machine in a park café, many years ago when parks were free to the public. The locket had come out of a plastic egg and was cheap and rainbow-coloured. It had been a green summer’s day just before the Restructure. Autumn then winter quickly followed, with shouting and tears and envelopes – orange ones then red and finally, black. Debtor’s gaol, she was told, and she was promised they would be out soon, but nearly two decades had passed and Saara had no idea where her parents were. I will find you, she promised. She pressed the locket to her lips and lay awake for hours.

Her food ran out the next day, and within a week she was out of money. Neither did her other neighbours have any to spare. She had asked for work at an abattoir, at an alehouse, at other internet centres, but to no avail. Her green hair and lip piercing fetched a lot of suspicious looks. Her stomach growled. Ragged Castout children with gaunt faces and large, distended bellies nibbled on leaves and twigs in and rummaged through bins in Shoreditch. The poor things wouldn’t last much longer. The lucky ones might be kidnapped and sold, the ‘delivery’ fee bolted on to their outstanding birth loan balance. That will not be me. But soon enough she was at the food banks, where she discovered she was not the only one who was chafing at the rate hike. The starving crowds had left her nothing but an onion. The charity running the banks had been hit by a police raid for ‘subversive activities’, a volunteer in a polo-shirt informed her glumly. Smiling men and women in orange overalls handed out leaflets to the crowds. At first Saara thought they were charity workers, but as she took a leaflet she realised what this was: Forfeiture.

“Slavery,” her friend Stephen had once explained as they shared a cigarette outside his brothel. “They buy your debt in exchange for your life. You surrender all your assets, you put on their uniform, and you work for them – forever. They even give you a new name. Legally it isn’t slavery, but you’re contractually obliged to live and work in their custody until such a time as someone buys your debt. In other words, until someone else buys you.” He put out the cigarette as a ‘client’ arrived. Stephen had a Higher in Politics, she remembered, for all the good that had done him. He liked to talk a lot about the debt markets and how they were used to trade human beings as well as profits. She looked down at the leaflet, where the company’s name, VALIDIA, was stamped in white against orange, along with the slogan “Join your new family!” She crumpled the leaflet into an angry ball, which she put into her jacket pocket.

She began to steal from her neighbours. First a smattering of oats, a slice of ham, some cheese. Then chocolate, rice, cuts of ham, even baby food. Still her stomach growled perpetually and she grew so thin she could see her own ribcage in her reflection and had to punch another hole in her belt. She smoked skazz to suppress her appetite and to wile away the days. After a week of wrangling, she turned up at Stephen’s brothel and begged the Mistress for a job. The expression of disgust as the Mistress looked her up and down was all the answer she needed. She returned home and through hot tears punched the wall again and again till the plaster cracked and her knuckles bled. The orange envelopes were followed by the red which were followed by the black. She was evicted at the end of the month, and her debts weren’t going anywhere. I am a Castout, she realised with horror, as it began to rain, cold droplets hitting her skin. Down the street, black-clad militiamen smoked and shared a bottle of gin. It was only a matter of time before they would wake her up with their kicks in whatever porch she found to sleep.

The lady in the orange overalls did not look away as Saara stripped down to her skin and handed over her clothes. They joined the rest of her ‘assets’- or the bag of clothes and the two books she had been allowed to take from her flat. They now belonged to Validia. She put on the orange overalls with VALIDIA and her number stamped on the back. Her surname was no longer Agarwal, she was told in a chilly reception office attached to a factory, but ‘Validia’ – she was now a new member of “the Validia family”, domiciled to cubicle B11-9892.

“You can keep your first name,” the lady told her over her half frame glasses. “But it must be spelled S-a-r-a-h or ‘S-a-r-a’.”

Saara glowered. “That isn't my name,” she said, sullenly. Something about the lady reminded her of Kate.

“It shall be going forward – unless you’d prefer me to pick you a different one, which I’m perfectly happy to do.” She scribbled something on a clipboard.

Saara chewed on her lip piercing. It’s this or a slow and painful death as a Castout, she reminded herself. I might be a slave here, but at least I’ll be alive.

“You’ll need to remove that, too. Only ear lobe piercings are permitted for females. A hairdresser will see to you during induction, but we can allow time for the dye to grow out. You’ll be working the warehouse night shifts. Work hard and you might get trained to use a forklift.”

“The warehouse?" Saara echoed with alarm. "Don’t people get...crippled in the warehouses?” She had heard gruesome stories.

“We work hard to ensure the highest standards of safety are followed,” answered the woman in a matter-of-fact manner. “We’ll need to take that too.”

She gestured with her clipboard to Saara’s throat.

“Not this,” Saara said, her hand instinctively clasping the heart locket her father had given her.

“Forfeiture means forfeiture,” the lady explained sternly. “Surrender all your assets, or you’re back out on the streets. Those are the rules. Well?”

Saara swallowed, her teeth clenched so hard she thought they would shatter, her palm damp as it closed around the locket.

Outside the rain was chilly and stung her skin. The cityscape was black and jagged before her, its lights glowing like embers in a forge. The cruel, drunken laughter of militia men mingling with the crazed screams of Castouts and skazzheads. Saara’s stomach churned. Her hands reached for the locket as though to make sure it was still there, and, zipping her jacket up to her chin, she stepped into the cold London night.