Capital Value

I’ve been told many times that those without Value have no place in this world.

As children we were told so every morning before class, every afternoon before being let out to exercise. Our Nurturers would tell us before bed and when we woke up, and like the rest I believed it. I Worked hard in and after school, terrified of falling below the Grade of Value. In many ways I still live under that system, the fear of losing Value keeping me awake at night, even up here on the surface.

Night…something I’m still not used to. In the Factory there is no darkness—darkness is inconvenient, hazardous, and worst of all unproductive. The Directors keep everything bright. Life runs in shifts; eight hours Work; eight hours recreation; eight hours sleep. No longer at the mercy of natural cycles, employees live different shifts so Production never ceases.

‘Morning’, comes a voice from next to me. I don’t turn my head, don’t want her to see my tired expression. It’s been months but I’m still not used to sleeping naturally. Insistent, she asks, ‘How are you feeling? Did you sleep any better?’

I can’t help but identify the unnecessary words. Greetings were wasteful; one question would’ve sufficed; a contraction should’ve been used. Six seconds for what could’ve taken one. In the Factory, six seconds could cost millions. Instinctively I look at my wrist before remembering it’s bare.

The woman beside me sighs. ‘Do you have to get up?’

‘Yes’. I rise and dress. Sera watches me from the bed, propped up on her elbow, looking at me with something between frustration and pity.

‘Why don’t we start work later? The sun’s barely up’, she says.

‘I want to be Valuable’, I say.

‘You’re valuable to me’, she says.

‘That’s not enough’. I’m at the apartment door when I hesitate, something else that’s new to me. I turn, look at her. ‘Sorry. It’s difficult.’

‘I know. It’s fine, I’ll come out later when it gets warmer. Don’t overdo it.’ Four seconds wasted. Should have been: Accepted. I’ll exit when it’s warm. I berate myself for getting irritated as I run down the apartment stairs.

Even as a child I never enjoyed sleeping. Sera told me her parents read bedtime stories when she was young, or sang soft melodies. My own Nurturers would recite the Factory Policy until I was old enough to drink the sleeping tonic.

Once, I didn’t drink it. I’m not sure why—some fragment of rebellion, or perhaps frustration at barely keeping above the Grade of Value. It was horrible, sleeping naturally; I barely managed it at all, feeling restless through the night. My parents knew immediately the next morning and reported me to their Supervisors for intervention. I’d been lucky to make it out with only one black mark against my record and a dock in my wages.

I wasn’t mad at my Nurturers. I was guilty knowing it reflected badly on their record. Nurturing is one of the most challenging occupations in the Factory, and I didn’t want to harm their Success. I just found it difficult knowing they wanted me to Achieve for their benefit rather than my own: love was not a factor in raising a Future employee.

The air is cold when I get outside, and while I hate how it hampers my dexterity I like how it wakes me up. As I head to the maintenance building for today’s list of Daily Tasks I drop my heart-shaped locket beneath my jacket, worried it might get caught on something and break. Jewellery doesn’t exist in the Factory—it’s unproductive—but Sera gave it to me and I refuse to take it off.

Working on the surface is as much for my own benefit as the city we live in. The Factory’s schedules are perfected, refined by billions of algorithmic checks and balances, and the sudden shock of removing myself from it was almost crippling. Without Work I’d lose all Value, and without Value I’d have no place in this world, and so for me and the six other ex-employees living here, the Daily Tasks are our lifeline. Even if we’re often just given busywork, like taking animals to pasture or surveying the crumbling city, it’s good enough for us.

When I get to the maintenance building I see cyan two-twenty-two and Administrator yellow fifteen already there. They haven’t taken surface names yet—I probably wouldn’t have either if it hadn’t been for Sera. She’d tried a few on me until she’d found one that stuck. She said it was because I was always moving about the place. Robyn.

Relationships don’t exist in the Factory. Employees are allowed friends to sit with during mealtimes or exercise with during recreation, but romance is strictly against Policy. Different Factories use different means to keep their employees under check. Progress, the corporation running my old Factory, uses pills to supress dangerous intentions.

Breeder is one of the most prestigious occupations to hold due to the strict physical and intellectual standards employees must exhibit. When I was sixteen I, like everyone my age, was screened as a potential candidate for the position. The first stage had me be left alone in a room with a coil of wires attached to my cranium and a screen set up in front of me. Within four minutes I was rejected and sent back to class. I’d never understood why until Sera asked me who exactly I’d been watching during the screening. Remembering Factory Policy, I realised that Progress was perhaps less Progressive than its name would suggest, and I was just glad my ‘affliction’ of orientation hadn’t left a black mark on my record.

‘Are those Albert’s sheep?’

‘Yes’, I say as Sera slips her arms around me. I feel good with her around. Even when she isn’t, she’s always on my mind, distracting me. I still don’t agree with Factory Policy, but I can see why they gave us the pills. I’m getting less productive by the month.

‘Does he know you’ve got them, or did you steal them when he wasn’t looking?’ Do you have permission? Another four seconds wasted.

‘Yes.’ There’s a pause and I turn to look at Sera, who’s now standing back with her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. I add, ‘I have permission.’ When Sera still doesn’t say anything, I try to stop my foot tapping on the grass. ‘Albert asked me to. He’s meeting with the Director.’

Sera smiles and pats me on the cheek. ‘Good job, you’re becoming quite the conversationalist.’ Sera sits on the grass and pulls me down next to her. ‘And stop calling her that’, she adds, ‘she’s just a mayor.’

I fail to see the difference, but let the matter drop as we watch the sheep graze. We’re in the city gardens, a monolithic attempt at preserving the little greenery that remained before the Industry Boom. They’ve fared incredibly well, protected against the acidic rains by a biodome…unlike the crumbling concrete buildings we make our homes in. The Factories were built underground to avoid the rain…the very rain their founders created.

Founders, I automatically correct myself, seeing the word written out in my mind. Capital F.

Literacy is an important part of Factory education, a key component of which is the concept of ‘Capital’; Maximising output from a minimal number of words; ensuring language is pro- Industry; and injecting certain words with power. ‘Capitalisation lends importance, dignity, and respect’, we were told. For example, currency, no matter where it originates, is Capitalised. Occupational titles are too, for they denote contribution to Industry, as are words like Work, Cooperation, Success and Value.

Names are not Capitalised—the Factory is wary of allowing too much individuality of its employees. Competing companies’ names are not Capitalised either, although many get around this by branding themselves as existing Capitalised words. My own old Factory, Progress, being one such example.

We were taught other rhetoric too. We didn’t work ‘for’ Progress, we worked ‘with’ it. ‘Colleagues’ were ‘Co-stars’, and our ‘time-sensitive work’ was ‘important input’. When I described it to Sera one night she was appalled. She said it took away our humanity, turned us into faceless workers, made us share everything and didn’t let us work for ourselves. When I pointed out everyone here in the city wears identical rain-proof jackets and pants, have to share their food and resources with others and work an equal amount to live here, she’d gone quiet and turned over in the bed.

‘Cyan left this morning’, Sera says quietly. I thought she’d dozed off on my shoulder.

I nod. ‘He told me his intentions.’

She lifts her head as if surprised, seems to think, then sighs and rests against me again. Her hand touches mine and I realise I’ve been holding the locket. ‘You didn’t try and stop him?’

‘He misses the Factory.’

‘You really think they’re going to let him in again?’

‘No.’

I feel Sera’s fingers in my hair. It hasn’t been cut since I left. Her grip grows tight and I try to disentangle her hands but she pulls my face close to hers and whispers, ‘do you miss it?’

‘About a third’, I say, the best I could come up with to describe my feelings in the moment. I hear Sera gulp.

‘…Do you want to go back?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re here.’

I still remember the expressions of Nurturers cyan eighty-two, eighty-eight and ninety-five when I turned back to look at them that day. They hadn’t tried to stop me leaving with the intruders—they were no longer my parental unit after all, having taken up a new Future employee. I don’t know what I’d been expecting. Disappointment? Encouragement?

There was nothing. They seemed unmoved as they watched me standing at the hole in the wall. I had been worried leaving might diminish their record, like when I hadn’t taken my tonic—their lack of care hurt me, a feeling I hadn’t experienced before. Already Builders were calling for materials and making plans to patch up the hole in the dining area wall. I was desperate for something from my old parents, and I ran to them and asked if I should stay.

‘No’, eighty-two had said.

‘Explain’, I’d said.

‘You’ve demonstrated a defect.’

That had set me straight. I’d left them, sprinting for the hole. A sheet of carbon was already being set up, had nearly covered the exit. I thought I’d missed my chance when a woman jumped out, pushed aside a Builder and hauled me through. Behind us the hole was sealed off, and I saw only five others of the six hundred in the dining area had chosen to come.

The woman, Sera, had helped me up and together we’d all begun our ascent up a support shaft. Sera had noticed the smile on my face, remarked on it.

‘My Nurturer stated I should leave due to a defect’, I’d said.

Sera had looked confused but I couldn’t stop smiling. Perhaps a Nurturer could love after all. There was no other reason they would suggest I leave except to prevent me being fired. They’d saved my life.

It wasn’t the only love I’d found that day.

‘I have to take the sheep back, it’s been two hours’, I say as I break away from Sera. She stares at me for a second, then grins.

‘Why not “I must return the sheep”? That’s, what, a full second you could’ve saved?’

I hesitate. She’s right. When she lays down against the grass I lay next to her. It’s itchy, a little coarse, but it’s organic and I decide I like it. ‘I can stay for a bit longer.’

‘Willing to be late? You must love me.’

I do. I Love her. With a Capital L.