Chapter 8: Transactions

Kelly and Nancy guided Amanda to the edge of the stage in Silver Orb's Great Hall. Amanda's face looked blank as a last-minute make-up touch-up was done for the lights and cameras.

"Amanda," Ned pushed his way through the crowd. Ned stood out because he was one of the few clothed people in the Great Hall. "Amanda, it's almost time."

"Amanda, one more thing before you go on stage," Kelly extended a velvet-covered jewelry box, a rectangle that was 40 centimeters long and narrow. "This was my slave collar. I last wore it when I visited Florida with Hank a few months ago. Would you honor me by wearing my slave collar?"

Amanda's jaw dropped. She could only nod as tears trickled down her cheeks. Kelly pressed the box in Amanda's hand and Kelly kissed Amanda on the cheek.

"Welcome to our family, Amanda."

Amanda was quiet as Ned led her to the well-lighted stage. Ned stopped just before they mounted the dais.

"Amanda?"

"Daddy, I've never felt like this before."

Ned chuckled.

"Daddy, I'm not afraid anymore. I still feel embarrassed, but how can I be afraid. Kelly called me 'sister.' I've never had a sister before."

"Judge Golovnin is a Catholic priest," Ned explained. "That's why he dresses funny. Vlad's family left Mother Russia just after Capitallia was formed and he was born in San Francisco. I see that you are wondering why I'm telling you all of this. I wanted to make transferring ownership to Hank something special. Hank considers this a marriage contract. You told me that you wanted a daughter so that you could give her what you missed out on. I can still back out right now. Do you want more of what you have seen so far?"

"Yes, Daddy. I'm going to be alright."

Daughter and father stepped into the spotlight holding hands. The judge was wearing his Greek Orthodox robes complete with rosary and cross. Amanda didn't listen to the short speech because she was telling herself that she was a good girl. Then a naked Hank Dalton joined the three people on stage.

"The price, Mr. Dalton, is one dollar," Amanda heard her father Ned say.

"Agreed. Here it is. She is a bargain at the price, Mr. Saunders," Hank handed Ned a small brownish coin 13 millimeters in diameter. "One dollar as agreed."

"I said a dollar, not a penny," Ned grumbled. He squinted at the coin. "Wait. This isn't a penny. This is gold?"

"Yes, an 1851 Liberty Head gold dollar," Hank said. "You didn't specify if you wanted Monopoly money or real money, so I took the liberty of swapping a Liberty dollar for your daughter's liberty. It is my pledge to meet your daughter's needs. Amanda is a valuable human being. We are exchanging value for value but I'm getting the better of the exchange."

"I thought that gold dollars were bigger." Judge Golovin said.

Amanda is a good girl, Amanda thought to herself as warmth expanded through her chest.

There were several other transitions on this afternoon. Some entered slavery. Some were manumitted. A few became concubines. Prostitution licenses handed out to some of the adults.

And the last event was Emmet and his family mounting the dais under the hot spotlights. There were four of them: Emmet, slave: Beverly Albertson, Legal Resident and licensed prostitute; Danny Albertson, age 13 and little Lucy Albertson, age 10. All wore thick plastic collars of white plastic around their necks—and only those collars. Emmet took up the 'slave display' position in the middle of the stage. The display position was the slave standing with feet shoulder width apart and hands on top of the head, palm down so that the owner or a prospective buyer had full access to inspect the slave. Beverly Albertson and her two children stood to Emmet's right in a group.

"This is how we appeared at Emmet's trials," Beverly began. "These collars around our necks remind us that as long as Emmet is enslaved, so are we. There's no stigma attached to prostitution, but I can document otherwise. Prostitution was the only livelihood left to me. But I do not have it nearly as bad as my husband. He has served three years of an eight-year criminal indenture. This is a plea for clemency."

"Kids, don't steal." Emmet said. "I stole and I was convicted in criminal court. They sentenced me to eight years as a slave. My owners will not be permitted to release me until I've served every day of my sentence. You see I stole by counterfeiting money. I made up money from thin air in violation of Capitallia's banking laws. I had no gold. I also stole the identity of a good citizen. I stole an ambulance. I did several other crimes. Bank tampering, theft of electronic services, burglary, breaking and entering, tampering with burglar alarms, even kidnapping. There, I've satisfied the legal requirements for a public service announcement.

"I did sue my insurance company for fraud. I won after a long battle. I was not a Legal Resident when the legal papers were filed and when my lawsuit was in progress I was a slave, but the insurance company almost killed my son Danny. My underwriter and my attorneys also pressed criminal charges against the Wilby Sterlingdown Insurance Corporation and several officers of the company. One man was convicted of fraud, the insurance adjuster, Bill Ravenshot. He was enslaved for two years and released. Mr. Ravenshot, if you will please join me on stage, sir, I'd appreciate it."

"Coming." Bill Ravenshot was a chubby man in a cheap green suit. "What he says is true. I have served my time. I was at a mine in Utah these past two years. They were my owners. I first ran across Emmet Albertson in the St. Joan's Children's Hospital. It was a sad story. Danny Albertson was ten and he collapsed at school. He had an undiagnosed heart condition. There was a chance to save his life, a new genetic medical procedure that had worked about 30% of the time and costs a half million dollars. Danny was in ICU at a cost of $4000 a day being kept alive on machines. It cost more per day to keep Danny in the ICU than I was paid monthly as an insurance adjuster. The kicker is that my company's database said that Emmet Albertson carried only minimum workers insurance, a policy that cost him $1800 annually at group rates through his employer, Woodward Data Systems. There was nothing I could do. I could barely afford him a cup of coffee."

"The truth is that Emmet had full family coverage through the Steven Simpson Underwriters, Limited." Beverly said. "Emmet had been paying that insurance since before Danny was born. The price was $7200 annually. A minimum policy maxes out at $50,000 per procedure and $150,000 in any one year, with a co-pay of the first $500. Our policy had a maximum of $1,500,000 per procedure and $5,000,000 total with a co-pay of only $250. Emmet?"

"I thought that there had just been some sort of mistake. Mr. Ravenshot seemed to be a decent man. He was so nice, so reasonable," Emmet said. "That being said, I couldn't accept Danny dying. I went home and got my papers together. I called my underwriter. Mr. Ravenshot had given me a couple of days to think things out. I used those days. First, I did some research and found that the Proctor Roger Clinic in Sacramento would do the surgery at 10AM on Friday. Danny had fallen down on a Tuesday. Next, I scheduled the surgical appointment. I hired an ambulance to drive Danny there. The passes here are as high as 2500 meters and Danny needed oxygen at only 1500 meters in order to avoid brain damage—if not merely to stay alive. I paid up Danny's hospital stay until Friday and made arrangements to move Danny from St. Joan's in Reno to Proctor Roger. It is a two-hour road trip or about 45 minutes by air car or helicopter. I even paid the $30,000 ambulance fee. There was a $10,000 down payment on Danny's surgery. I was not going to allow my son to die."

"That was most of our savings," Beverly said. "On Wednesday Emmet took a day off from work and met at Bill Ravenshot's downtown office. A representative from Steven Simpson Underwriters went with him. I went with him. Bill tried to get us to sign a euthanasia order—there was no need for that. We only wanted what the insurance company owed us. Dad always told us kids to never make a bet that we couldn't cover. When Wilby Sterlingdown took Emmet's money, 8% of his annual salary, they contracted to cover medical costs for his entire family. We had proof."

"I saw the documents, I checked my company's data base," Bill said. "I was scared. Somebody was wrong. I used my best judgment and told the Albertsons to leave or I'd have them arrested for trespass. Then I called my boss and laid out the whole thing. He told me to not worry about it, he'd handle everything; that the Albertsons were committing fraud and that Danny wasn't really sick. I still had a nagging feeling that the Albertsons were in the right, but I didn't believe that my company was trying to steal from them either. This was Wednesday. I had a backlog of cases and so I didn't give it another thought until I was arrested and charged with criminal fraud. The reason that I took the fall was lack of evidence that I had done anything other than stonewall the Albertsons. I looked bad when I was in court and I felt even worse. I told them everything and under the mandatory post-sentencing interrogation they determined that I was telling the court what I thought was the truth, so they reduced my 20-year enslavement to 2 years. I was lucky. The court lacked evidence to go after the rest of the company and the company officers tried with me had all turned state's evidence against me. They gained immunity and I spent two years digging gold out of solid rock more than three kilometers beneath Utah's Great Salt Lake."

"Emmet went to his company for help on Thursday morning, but was told that he no longer worked there." Beverly said. "A security guard told him that his severance check would be deposited Friday afternoon. I don't want to get that man fired, so I won't tell you his name, but he also said that there was something fishy about how Emmet got fired."

"I can verify that," a tall, skinny, very old and very wrinkled brown man with a thin wreath of white hair in a white cowboy outfit slowly climbed the stage as he spoke. "I am Bucky Woodward and I own Woodward Data Systems and Emmet. Hi Emmet."

"Hello, Master Bucky."

"My company didn't break any laws firing Emmet, but I had words with my personnel chief when I found out. Emmet was, is still, my top programmer. If I need something fixed, he does it. When Emmet was convicted and put up for auction, I made sure that I outbid everybody else." Bucky paused at the top of the stairs to tip his hat to Beverly. "Anytime you want a job, Missus, WDS has one."

"Thank you sir," Beverly said. "I have a job."

"You can tell me off. I will not take it out on Emmet." Bucky smiled. "Emmet, finish your story."

"Yes sir, Master Bucky. I got home and my landlord called me to his office. My lease had a clause that I would have to pay off the entire lease if I ever lost my job. I kept money in the bank enough to pay off that lease in full at any time because I signed one-year leases for $2000 per month. I had eight months' rent to cough up or I'd be evicted in 30 days. There was another clause in my lease that if I moved out before my lease expired, no matter what the reason, I had to pay the remaining rent owed plus any damages to the apartment within 30 days or the case would go to a debtor's tribunal. I could wind up enslaved until my debt was paid off. I did have the $16,000 and I paid on the spot. When I got back to my apartment I had a voice mail telling me that my insurance coverage was dependent on remaining gainfully employed and that insurance coverage would end at midnight Saturday. That was a lie—I paid in full at the beginning of every year. When my daughter Lucy got home, she had a note informing me that if I didn't have proof of health insurance for Lucy she couldn't return to school."