Stories

A Dark Dystopian Tale of Debt, Ownership and Desire - 12 Pages

I. - REPLACED

In the late-morning city, the loading lanes were always the most conspicuous feature. Down the center of the street, in a channel cut into the pavement, a team of three women moved as one, their bodies gleaming with sweat as they hauled a SlaveHaul freight cart bearing the company logo. Nothing covered them below the waist except black steel straps cinched tightly around their thighs; above, they wore little more than the regulation lattice of harness straps crossing their shoulders, breasts, and collarbones, supporting numbered metal plates that flashed as they moved.

Around each woman’s neck was an ownership collar bearing her owner’s name and identification number. The first woman still had fresh red pressure marks across the bridge of her nose where the strap of the stainless-steel bit ran; on the second, the strap crossed an old callus along her cheekbone. On the third, the metal bar seemed to trace the shape of a missing smile across her face as she stared at the ground, swallowing with every step to endure the steel cutting into the corners of her mouth.