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aldersprigContinuing flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.
Today's icon:
I made this icon, for this story. Names from Fourteen Minutes' random generator.
This comes after Chain 'Round her Neck.
The title comes from this song.
They’d taken her clothes weeks ago, and Basimontin didn’t give her new ones before he removed her from her cell. He led her by the chain around her neck, like an animal on a leash, through the black-steel corridors of their pirate vessel.
“Where are we going?” she asked, but he seemed to be in a sort of trance. She was pretty sure he was more shaken up than she was – but he’d believed all along that her family would cough up the money. She’d known from the moment they took her that she was never going home again.
“Here,” he answered belatedly, thumping on a bulkhead door before opening it. The sign above the door read “First Mate.”
The woman behind the desk was rangy, one-eyed, brown-haired, and handsome despite, or because of, a practical hair cut and a ship’s jumpsuit. “Thank you, Basimontin. You can leave her here.” She gestured at the chair in front of her desk; the chair, the desk, and a bigger, more comfortable-looking chair that she was sitting in were the only furnishings in the sparse office.
Carefully, as if handling a wild tiger, Basi hooked the end of Genique’s chain leash to the back of the chair. “Good luck,” he muttered unhappily, and left.
“Please sit,” the woman began brusquely. Seeing no reason to start off on a bad foot, Genique sat, trying not to stick to the slick plastic chair.
“I’m First Mate Cleonorayen Clyd. You are, my papers say, Genique Wadevier, and you belong to us now.”
“Yes,” she answered flatly. Both of those things were, it seemed, true.
Clyd looked questioningly at her, and then back to the ledger pad she was holding. “You can go to work for us, or we can sell you. If you go to work for us, you’ll have a chance to earn your freedom by working off your ransom price. If we sell you, we can offer no guarantee that your new owner will give you that option.”
She nodded. Basi had told her most of this already.
“If you work for us, you’ll start in the Pit, as everyone does, for one hundred thirty credits a week.”
“Sammury or Tylen credits?” she interrupted.
“Sammury. We do most of our business through Sammury banks.”
Genique nodded again. Her ransom had been in Tylen credits, probably to make it a nice even hundred thou. In Sammury currency, that was closer to fifty thousand. Thirteen weeks a cycle… “So, a base of a little over seven years.” She nodded. “That sounds preferable to a lifetime.”
“Very good,” Clyd nodded. “But there, of course, expenses.”
“Of course,” Genique answered dryly. “Such as…?”
“Room and board. That comes to one hundred creds a week. Clothing allowance is twenty credits every four weeks. Those are your only required expenses.”
She did the math. “That brings me down to a hundred credits a four-week period, or more than thirty-eight years to buy myself free.”
“If you stayed at the minimum wage in the Pit, of course. A bright woman like you, I don’t see that happening.”
“Raises are…?”
“Depends on the position of course. And, on the other hand, there are spending money options, the Store, extra perks in the dining room, and punishment fines. These can run between nothing to around 40 credits each, a year.”
“Essentially trapping me here until I die.” She studied the numbers in her head. “Room is a billet and a blanket. That can’t cost you all that much. Board, even assuming it’s a nutritious three-pyramids-a-day, can be done for as little as one and a half credits a day, maybe up to three a day if you’re really getting bent over the coals for food transport costs. Clothing – if we were aiming for being fashionistas, I can see twenty, maybe forty credits a four-week period. But I haven’t seen anything here that should run more than five credits in a four-week, and that’s assuming very hard wear and tear.” She looked up at the first mate, intentionally meeting her gaze. “You’re pirates. You’re not being ripped off that thoroughly by anyone. So it’s a scheme designed to force your ‘workers’ into perpetual indentured servitude. I’d rather take honest slavery, than that.”
The woman looked amused and impressed all at once. “What did you say you did before?”
“I didn’t. I was an accounts administrator for the farm collective on Maymonta.” She frowned as the “was” finally hit home. “Much of your dairy and nouveau-cow probably came from one of our farms.”
“Explains a lot.” Clyd made some notations on her pad. “You’re still going to start in the Pit - everyone does. But we’ll start you at four-thirty a week, same basic deductions as everyone gets.”
Genique raised an eyebrow. “That’s a very reasonable rate, then.”
“I have a feeling,” Clyd smirked, “that you’re a very reasonable woman.”
Today's icon:
I made this icon, for this story. Names from Fourteen Minutes' random generator.
This comes after Chain 'Round her Neck.
The title comes from this song.
They’d taken her clothes weeks ago, and Basimontin didn’t give her new ones before he removed her from her cell. He led her by the chain around her neck, like an animal on a leash, through the black-steel corridors of their pirate vessel.
“Where are we going?” she asked, but he seemed to be in a sort of trance. She was pretty sure he was more shaken up than she was – but he’d believed all along that her family would cough up the money. She’d known from the moment they took her that she was never going home again.
“Here,” he answered belatedly, thumping on a bulkhead door before opening it. The sign above the door read “First Mate.”
The woman behind the desk was rangy, one-eyed, brown-haired, and handsome despite, or because of, a practical hair cut and a ship’s jumpsuit. “Thank you, Basimontin. You can leave her here.” She gestured at the chair in front of her desk; the chair, the desk, and a bigger, more comfortable-looking chair that she was sitting in were the only furnishings in the sparse office.
Carefully, as if handling a wild tiger, Basi hooked the end of Genique’s chain leash to the back of the chair. “Good luck,” he muttered unhappily, and left.
“Please sit,” the woman began brusquely. Seeing no reason to start off on a bad foot, Genique sat, trying not to stick to the slick plastic chair.
“I’m First Mate Cleonorayen Clyd. You are, my papers say, Genique Wadevier, and you belong to us now.”
“Yes,” she answered flatly. Both of those things were, it seemed, true.
Clyd looked questioningly at her, and then back to the ledger pad she was holding. “You can go to work for us, or we can sell you. If you go to work for us, you’ll have a chance to earn your freedom by working off your ransom price. If we sell you, we can offer no guarantee that your new owner will give you that option.”
She nodded. Basi had told her most of this already.
“If you work for us, you’ll start in the Pit, as everyone does, for one hundred thirty credits a week.”
“Sammury or Tylen credits?” she interrupted.
“Sammury. We do most of our business through Sammury banks.”
Genique nodded again. Her ransom had been in Tylen credits, probably to make it a nice even hundred thou. In Sammury currency, that was closer to fifty thousand. Thirteen weeks a cycle… “So, a base of a little over seven years.” She nodded. “That sounds preferable to a lifetime.”
“Very good,” Clyd nodded. “But there, of course, expenses.”
“Of course,” Genique answered dryly. “Such as…?”
“Room and board. That comes to one hundred creds a week. Clothing allowance is twenty credits every four weeks. Those are your only required expenses.”
She did the math. “That brings me down to a hundred credits a four-week period, or more than thirty-eight years to buy myself free.”
“If you stayed at the minimum wage in the Pit, of course. A bright woman like you, I don’t see that happening.”
“Raises are…?”
“Depends on the position of course. And, on the other hand, there are spending money options, the Store, extra perks in the dining room, and punishment fines. These can run between nothing to around 40 credits each, a year.”
“Essentially trapping me here until I die.” She studied the numbers in her head. “Room is a billet and a blanket. That can’t cost you all that much. Board, even assuming it’s a nutritious three-pyramids-a-day, can be done for as little as one and a half credits a day, maybe up to three a day if you’re really getting bent over the coals for food transport costs. Clothing – if we were aiming for being fashionistas, I can see twenty, maybe forty credits a four-week period. But I haven’t seen anything here that should run more than five credits in a four-week, and that’s assuming very hard wear and tear.” She looked up at the first mate, intentionally meeting her gaze. “You’re pirates. You’re not being ripped off that thoroughly by anyone. So it’s a scheme designed to force your ‘workers’ into perpetual indentured servitude. I’d rather take honest slavery, than that.”
The woman looked amused and impressed all at once. “What did you say you did before?”
“I didn’t. I was an accounts administrator for the farm collective on Maymonta.” She frowned as the “was” finally hit home. “Much of your dairy and nouveau-cow probably came from one of our farms.”
“Explains a lot.” Clyd made some notations on her pad. “You’re still going to start in the Pit - everyone does. But we’ll start you at four-thirty a week, same basic deductions as everyone gets.”
Genique raised an eyebrow. “That’s a very reasonable rate, then.”
“I have a feeling,” Clyd smirked, “that you’re a very reasonable woman.”
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Date: 2011-12-18 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-19 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-19 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 03:02 am (UTC)Ooh, she is very smart. (Or maybe my perspective is just skewed because I'm not good at math.) She'll go far! Maybe.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 03:09 am (UTC)Yay, you noticed the currencies!!
no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-10 02:12 am (UTC)-> that she was sitting in