John C.P. Warner

I had set out from Se’ton Corporation to Ru’orn Ridge with the body of MeMah on a Hungerday. Progress was slow – at times the cart was blocked by shifts in the rubble-fields that had once been the homes of the Commutermen and Late-ists, but mostly it was slowed by dodging the funereal traffic-jams that housed their bones. It left a lot of time for up-thinking. I found me head filled with re-imaginings, with prequel-days when MeMah had still been a good consumer. She was an A-rater, a proper debtist with accounts all over the ‘pool. It was when the Marketeers turned up it all got down-graded.

           

We knew about Daan Saaf from the best-sellers and the threefortwos, we knew about The Eye that watched over it, we knew they had their own Late-ists; that their Commutermen travelled underground. We knew about Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes. We knew that they had schools for young wizards; that the real double-A’s, the old-skool Marketeers had lived in huge glass towers that overlooked the C-graders and the creditless. We also knew it was where the first of the big collections had begun.

 

# # #

 

The Commutermen and Late-ists frightened me when I was a kid; they frighten all kids before they open their first account. The Se’ton Corporation was surrounded on all sides by a Late-ist procession that mostly protected us from ‘lifter raids. I would creep up to their traffic-jams with the other kids – we would egg one another on to get closer, ever closer to their coffins, to peer into eye sockets as empty as the pockets of the creditless, to tap upon their tombs and run away before they came to collect from us as they were collected from. MeMah caught us once. I had expected a beating, but she had sat me mates and me down, told us about when the Late-ist coffins had been multi-coloured ribbons lining the roads; they had snaked towards temples where Mammon would grant them credit for their work. We were thrilled by tales of their I-ism, how some of the Late-ists could demand the credit of twenty or thirty of the Commutermen combined. We each dreamed, then, of the day we would step over the sick and creditless to take our own mortgages, the best of us wondering if we could repossess the mortgage of another. Where your treasure is, there be your heart also, she had said. We had each of us sighed, impressed by our local Late-ists, convinced in our young minds of their true double-A rating.

 

# # #

 

When the Marketeers arrived from Daan Saaf they were subdued – unusual from our experience of the visitors we’d received from their region. Awwy, Paww and Wichee were lacking in the normal up-sell of those from their Corporation – what they called ‘the kaahnsill’ – they were without the Shandy supply they would usually have carried, were pale and reserved. It wasn’t until too late we realised it was because they were to bring the Bailiff down upon us.

 

# # #

 

I can’t remember how I found out about the dangers our Shoppers – or the Daan Saaf Marketeers – faced on their trips; I suppose it must have been after I opened me first account, it is not a story for kids. I’m glad it’s not. I did know by the time they took MeDah. By the time he paid his debt I had already learned of the recovery agents that had collected it. I had never thought it possible – no boy does – that MeDah would face foreclosure in such a manner. I had always imagined that he was invested for a long-distant pay-off, that he’d be renegotiating his terms forever.

           

He was Security, MeDah; protected the interests of the Se’ton Corporation, a proper debtist job. Then, on what was supposed to be a short patrol to clear the surrounding area of any ‘lifter camps that had sprung up over the summer months, he was rendered insolvent. It was because of this that I learned of the horror that lurked so close to the safety of me own Corporation. Not only were there the bands of ‘lifters that raided from time to time, there were also those issued notice, bearing the mark of the Bailiff. It was one of these that collected the assets of MeDah and half his security detail. I don’t know, don’t want to know, what happened on that trip, but those that returned were beaten, bruised and bloodied. It was rumoured that they too were issued notice, what is definite is that they were asset-stripped and burned three days after their return.

 

# # #

 

The Daan Saaf Marketeers had crept up to the Security gate of Se’ton Corp at the first light of dawn on a Payday – not an unusual day for visitors to arrive, Marketeers were hardly likely to arrive on a Poorday or Hungerday, after all. That was where similarities with previous visits ended, though. Where they would normally have set up their stalls, instead they requested a meeting with the Director, instead of participating in the Drinkday celebrations they were sequestered in the Director’s Officers, when the entirety of the Se’ton Corporation turned out to peruse their wares on the Spendday, they were met with empty stalls. On Sickday it was announced that the Daan Saafers had been hired by the Se’ton Corporation and notices were put up for lodgings – until they could claim a mortgage of their own. MeMah had been one of those selected to play Landlord to a Marketeer. I suppose she saw it as a way to sure up solvency that had been in decline since the death of MeDah. By extending a line of credit to one of these strange men, maybe she saw herself guaranteed shares in The Recessurection, when all markets would rise again. That same day Wichee’s few possessions were moved into our mortgage.

           

I never once thought it odd that our lodger was never to be seen with his shirt off, despite the heat of the summer months, despite the hard labour he and his friends were put to in that time. It was easy to blame any odd behaviour on their place of birth – the Shandy Drinkers were strange, everyone knew that. It did not occur to me that he was hiding something. It did not occur to anyone that they were – not until a month had passed and Awwy was killed during an aggressive take-over of his Landlord’s mortgage. It showed that he had been a quick study, to be so forward thinking so soon – and Se’ton Corp would have no doubt welcomed him had he been successful. Unfortunately for Awwy, his Landlord had been ready. According to official Corporation minutes, Awwy had begun his take-over bid in the dead of a Sorryday night, creeping into his Landlord’s sleeping compartment with knife unsheathed. Shrouded in the black of night he had not watched his footing and, after breaking a trip-wire, had a scythe blade buried in his stomach – thanks to some ingenious workmanship on behalf of his host.

 

Whether or not through shock or some other mysterious impulse, he did not scream but ran into the night holding in his guts, maybe to warn his associates that they were to be discovered. I can only speculate. He was found face down on the blood soaked earth early the next morning.

           

The first I knew about the discovery was the scream of the early riser that had stumbled upon the corpse. The Corporation awoke, almost as a single entity, sleep swiftly shaken from the minds of sleepers by the ululating cry. I rushed from MeMah’s mortgage toward the source of the scream, only to find a circle of people rocking with fear and despair. I struggled through to the centre of the crowd where, staring blankly into the grey morning sky, was Awwy, his torso exposed to reveal the scythe wound in his stomach and, seeming to emanate from his heart, in a pattern we all recognised from stories, was the Bailiff’s notice, the blackening veins and capillaries radiating from the centre of his chest, an expanding black web that would mean the death of so many.

           

The Daan Saafer’s colleagues had their assets liquidated that afternoon; they didn’t struggle as the crowd tore at their clothes and skin, they wept quietly as their marks were exposed – Wichee’s torso was a filigree of black veins and capillaries that snaked over his chest, stomach and shoulders from that central black region. Me first up-think was of the exposure meself and MeMah had had; I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d had our own notice served. I took no pleasure seeing them drop through the trapdoors, no joy at the snap of their necks. The damage had been done to Se’ton Corp, its flotation had come to an abrupt end, we could only await the inevitable crash.

           

The kids and the elderly were the first to see the effects, they always are. The Bailiff collected from the young and old quickly in the weeks that followed. The black web crept across the skin of Se’ton Corp and one by one its employees dropped dead, their lives repossessed. It was only a matter of time before a member of the Corporation became a collection agent, yet we were still taken by surprise when it happened.

           

It was in the middle of a subdued Drinkday celebration, as the Corporation milled in sullen defeat, that the Bailiff hired its first collection agent – a giant of a man, so heavily marked by the Bailiff that his face seemed to have been tattooed. I was drinking heavily, not far from where it happened, I remember it vividly. One moment he was roaring, drunker than me, the next his bevvy had fallen from his hands and he was stood perfectly still. Those around him seemed to sense a change for all but one began to back away from the big man. That one, however, was still lost in his bevvy, still within the grasp of his former friend – who reached out, drew him close and snapped his neck. It took six men to asset-strip the giant. That night the exodus began, Se’ton Corp was no more.

That was the night MeMah died.

 

# # #

           

Ru’orn Ridge is where we lay our elders, our most worthy, to rest. We expose their bodies to the sky, the better to await the Recessurection. It was to there I decided to take MeMah. I learned quickly – following an attack by collection agents – to expose the mark of the Bailiff that was spreading out from me heart in a black even deeper than that of me skin; once those creatures, those former men and women, saw that me notice had already been served, they turned away to look for others more solvent. I drew the cart on in slow, torturous progress toward the last resting place of our Directors, heaving her over rubble and around the endless procession of Commutermen and Late-ists, until at last I reached me destination.

 

# # #

 

The gigantic arch of Ru’orn Ridge stretches out over The River Murky, soaring over the coffins of the Lateists below. I haul MeMah to the scaffold that ascended to the resting place of Se’ton Corporation’s Directors; I carry her to a lift me colleagues had fashioned many years before and begin to heave upon the rope. With a constant squeal of protest the lift ascended to the top of the arch and there, veiled in the thick, cloying black of night I lay MeMah down and tie her in place. When the morning comes she will be close to that golden orb, its summer warmth will dry her skin to leather, preserving her, ready for the Recessurection – when she will rise again with the markets. I see the flickering of firelight in the distance and part of me wants to find the men and women that warm themselves at its side, to crawl once again through a flap and into a warm mortgage, to lie down upon a bed. I know, however that that can never be, not now. I have been served notice. There is only one honourable thing to do and that is to file me own bankruptcy. I step out into the night that rests heavily upon the Murky and I fall.