New Slavery Act: requirement to contract for labour
Warnings: slavery
Disclaimer: untrue except in a very undesirable future. Don't vote for it, folks.
Author's Note: This is based on poisontaster and darkrosetiger 's astonishing A Kept Boy universe, and is intended as payment to trishabooms for a Horse drabble. Due to the lack of characterisation and plot, it's likely to be a one-off.
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Los Angeles Branch Office,
Commerce Department
Dear Lord/Lady/Master/Mistress xxxx
New Slavery Act: Requirement to contract for labour
Your Commerce Department return for the contract labour year 2xxxx/xx shows your income at a level at which you are subject to the requirement to contract for the labour of xx slave(s).
Our records show that at present you are contracted for the labour of xx slave(s).
You are invited to visit the Los Angeles Branch Office of the Commerce Department to discuss your needs for contracted labour. You may also wish to visit our website at www.departmentofcommerce.gov.usna
Penalties for non-compliance with the requirement to contract for labour include -
- Payments to the value of $xxxx for each contract labour year in which you are not contracted for the labour of the number of slaves required by the New Slavery Act
- Imprisonment
- Placement in the Slave Labour pool
Yours sincerely
Administrator
Los Angeles Branch Office
Commerce Department
---------------------------"I can't do it."
"It's the price of success. If you hadn't sold Horse for so much, or the movie rights hadn't been optioned, you wouldn't have this problem. So forgive me, but sympathy for you is likely to be short on the ground."
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"I don't want to do it. It must be obvious to anyone who's read Horse how I feel about it."
"But you know that just paying the fines isn't enough, not unless you've got some serious back up from family. And you don't. You know I'm on your side, but if Commerce decide to go for you, there won't be anything I can do. And honestly, you can't think that they don't know about what you've written."
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"How can I possibly do it?"
"Look, there are ways in which this doesn't have to be so horrible. You can search for a slave to rescue. I mean, you can't exactly go to Roche and buy a horse, because I don't suppose they'd let you in the door. But there are other places where you can find slaves who'll have a better life with you than with anyone else. Every slave that's been made available will be somewhere on the Commerce website, so you've just got to look around and see who you can rescue. You could pick a body slave who's at the end of their useful life, and justify it to Commerce as wanting someone who's experienced as your first body slave, rather than having to train someone from scratch. Or pick someone young, so the bad things don't happen to them. Honestly, just about anyone on the Commerce lists would have a better chance with you, don't you think?
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"Now, let me show you how the listings on our website work. Obviously, at this stage you don't see names or provenances, but you can search by any physical characteristic or by training and experience. This box here shows any special aptitudes, and you can search those through this list here, or for the less usual interests, type your own query here. I'll leave you to browse, shall I, and look in on you later."
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"Excuse me, I bookmarked this page but the sale details have just disappeared. Can you show me how to get them back, please?"
"Well, it might mean the slave might has been sold."
"Can you check, please?"
"OK, there are no sales for today coming up on this section. Do you remember what the figure in the box here was? This is the remands list, so after a certain period of time the listing is taken off. If the sale details on the page you bookmarked have disappeared, that means the slave will no longer be available for a new contract."
"But I was just looking at it five minutes ago. Can you get it back, please?"
"I can make a call, if you've decided that you want to purchase this slave's contract?"
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"It's Closing tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'm expected to go to a Commerce Escrow house to check out the naked person I just bought and bring them home."
"I don't think they make you do an inspection do they? It's a check for condition, so if you're not going to reject for condition, you can waive the inspection, can't you? But if you're not going to do an inspection, you ought to take some decent clothes along, though, it might help to reassure the slave that you value them, even if you're not carrying out an inspection. You've got a print-out with all the sizes, haven't you?"
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"I need you to sign here, to say you've waived the opportunity for a full inspection, and here, to say that you are fully satisfied with the condition of your purchase. The listed price includes the regulation Commerce collar, and you have a period of 14 days before the requirement for a personally inscribed collar becomes mandatory. Unless you have any further questions, that concludes our business. You may remove your slave from this house at any time within the next 12 hours."
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