ORL, GBL...
The guy with three fours on his chest noticed I was paying attention, and started talking faster and more animatedly. A few times, he even risked taking his hands off the bottle clamped between his legs. The more he talked, the more I learned.
This was a simple, cold, and dispassionately cruel place. Everything was extremely rational.
Everyone who came to the Zone, as they called these hallways — and everyone started their path here — started with ORL status. Optimized Regular Labor. Everyone here got an ORL job from the system every day, and the system credited their account with sol if they did the job.
Were ORL jobs easy? For some people. A lot depended on the limbs you ended up with. Some people were lucky enough to get sturdy legs and strong hands. If you didn’t... well, life’s a bitch.
What was a standard ORL job?
Using gray slime as an example, the ORL version of the job was to collect eighty standard containers. You’d get fifteen sol for that. The system cut me a one-time break: I had a GBL job that paid like an ORL job.
So my current job description looked like this:
Job: Collect gray slime. Easy (O).
Description: Collect and deliver forty standard containers of gray slime to the receiver unit.
Deadline: Evening end-of-work alarm.
Compensation: 15 sol.
But a standard ORL job would look like this:
Job: Collect gray slime.
Description: Collect and deliver eighty standard containers of gray slime to the receiver unit.
Deadline: Evening end-of-work alarm.
Compensation: 15 sol.
If I failed to complete even one ORL job, I would automatically get demoted, no second chances. And the system, as judge, jury, and executioner here, didn’t care why I wasn’t able to get the job done.
Didn’t do your job? Demoted! And down the chute I’d go. ORL becomes GBL — Graded Basic Labor. And what was it like having GBL status? It sucked. You did half as much work, but the payment matched that.
The job would look pretty much the same as what I had now, but with minor changes to the description and way less compensation.
Job: Collect gray slime. Easy (GBL).
Description: Collect and deliver forty standard containers of gray slime to the receiver unit.
Deadline: Evening end-of-work alarm.
Compensation: 8 sol.
Eight sol?
That was jack shit.
What was the bare minimum I was spending each day? Three sol for food, three for water, immunosuppressant shots, and vitamins. That was it. My whole daily wage. All eight sol. What about showers? Or... there were a lot of things I might need. A t-shirt would be nice. Could I buy a t-shirt here, or did they only give them to the women?
Were there other jobs? Ones that paid better?
Very rarely. Most of the system’s ORL and GBL jobs were collecting slime, collecting garbage, and cleaning walls. Did people close to bankruptcy get easier jobs but with the same compensation?
What was it like being bankrupt? Wouldn’t it make sense to just go bankrupt, since they get easier tasks? After today’s evening alarm I’d be in the red myself, anyways. A fantastic start to my new life. What a meteoric career.
Did it make sense to go bankrupt? God forbid! There was no fate worse than bankruptcy.
In local slang, if you were completely bankrupt it meant you had lost all your rented limbs. The system would take them from you if your total debt reached fifty sol. If that happened, they’d take an arm in the medblock. If you were right-handed, it’d be your left, And if you were left-handed, vice versa.
Once they cut your arm off, your debt went down by twenty-five sol. You heard that right. That was how much your arm was worth. As soon as your debt hit fifty again, they’d cut off a leg. Which one? System’s choice. Your debt would go down by thirty, and they’ll send you on your way. You’re fifty sol in debt again? Say goodbye to that second leg, and get another thirty wiped off your debt. Really? You hit fifty another time? Well, you only have yourself to blame. Get ready to part with your one remaining limb. In exchange, your debt gets canceled. You and the system are even.
That’s bankruptcy.
You lose everything, and they take your last limb to pay off your debt. You turn into a worm with a human face. All you can do is crawl and beg — for food, for water, for help using the toilet or taking a shower. Help me, help me, help me... But how many times are people going to help you? Maybe one person who hasn’t entirely lost their sense of compassion might answer your piteous prayers. Someone else might reluctantly give you a few sips of water. But sooner or later, you’d end up in a whorehouse or have to learn to use your head the way nature intended. There had been those who managed to survive by entertaining others with hallway performances.
“This is reality, dude. Get used to it. Think about it.” The system was cold and merciless, but its approach worked well. Just seeing the pathetic, whimpering worms that were once human would dissuade you from taking a day off. You would work as hard as you could to complete that damned daily job, no matter what, just to avoid sliding down the debt chute. You would spend your days and nights thinking about your budget, trying to set aside at least twenty sol as savings in case you got sick or something. Even if you didn’t buy food, water, or vitamins, you couldn’t get out of the immunosuppressant and limb payments. Five sol every day. If you needed medicine, the medblock was there to help you out. Two sol for diagnostics, one sol for medicine. Or sometimes two, depending on how sick you were. Two days of that and your savings would be gone. Not very many people around here managed to save more than twenty sol.
Was there a way out of bankruptcy?
There was.
Save up until you had fifty-three sol. Get to the medblock however a worm like you could. They’d examine you, and then stitch on one limb of your choice: an arm or a leg, then give you an immunosuppressant. Fifty-three sol.
Could you choose the quality of the new limb? Triple fours had no idea, but the limb would definitely be in good working shape. Since that was the most important thing.
Had anyone ever managed that?
He could remember a few cases. One girl earned enough to get her arms back by doing street performances, saving up sol one by one.
Another guy had his brother help him out. He worked his butt off and saved enough for his brother to get one arm back, then they worked together to earn back the rest of his limbs.
Wait. Brother? How did they know they were brothers? Everyone’s memory was blocked.
They didn’t need memories, it was obvious — they were twins. Identical down to the very last hair. There were only two potential scenarios: they were related, or they were clones. Either way, they were connected to each other. Right?
Yeah, that would connect them. Hang on, now... let’s imagine I’m fifty sol in debt. The system is sharpening the scalpel that’s gonna take off my arm. What if I just stay away? I’m not a total idiot! I could hide somewhere and just never go into those chair rooms. I could keep working instead. Who would ever voluntarily go to the medblock knowing they were about to lose a healthy arm? It’d be easier to just work harder, work off some of that debt.
It wouldn’t work.
Why not?
Simple, really, and kind of sad. As soon as your debt hit fifty sol, the Job section of your menu would vanish. The system would give someone else a special manhunt assignment: capture and deliver the sorry debtor to the nearest medblock. All they had to do was push you inside, then the doors would close... and you’d walk out missing an arm. Well, if you were lucky you’d walk out. You could end up crawling out.