Alice stays until the end of her Labour.

Alice stayed at her desk and hoped she would get away with being under 75 Social Credits. She would donate blood on the way home for an easy 5 Social Credits. She’d donate some of her work hours to the Department of Restoration’s rebuilding fund that was being used to cleanse and rebuild the cities that had been bombed. She’d heard stories of the monuments in Old D.C. and longed to visit them one day. Alice would need at least 500 Social Credits to be allowed to enter that zone. She hoped to have them by the time she retired. The clean-up efforts were going well. Alice herself had reinformed the radiation levels from over 100 sieverts down to just 10. She was sure by the time she had saved up enough Social Credits to go someone would have reinformed it down even further. It would be perfectly safe by then.

17:56. Alice breathed a sigh of relief. The Status-Wardens were usually here by now. She was in the clear.

17:58. Alice began packing up her work station. She saved the report she was working and gathered up her belongings. Tomorrow she would be assigned to a new day-desk and she would begin the reinformation all over again.

17:59 The elevator opened at the end of the floor she had been working on. Shit! It was the Status-Wardens Alice panicked.

It would take them almost 15 minutes to get to her. She hated when they left it so late and it ate into the time that was supposed to be left to her. It was bad enough working 12-hour days 7 days a week. Sunday you could take a half-day if you had the Social Credits. Alice hadn’t had one of those in a long while. Today she didn’t so much mind that the Status-Wardens were late but that she was under the 75 Social Credits she needed to escape without a performance review.

Alice played with the Colour-Bracelet around her wrist as she lined up behind the other girls and waited to be checked. There were two lines and she picked the longer of the two. It would save her the embarrassment of being called out in from of all the other workers. She didn’t call them friends as she didn’t know who any of them were. She worked in a different pool with different workers every day.

She prayed it was one of the nicer Status-Wardens that was checking her, like Peter, Isaac or even Deborah. She couldn’t tell as the Status-Warden wore helmets with black facemasks. Neither of these two looked female so it couldn’t be Deborah. She prayed it wasn’t Brian under the mask. Alice hated Brian.

Stepping forward to be checked, most of the other girls had been checked already. The Status-Warden to her left had two women still to check. He was dealing with an infraction.

“You were assigned to the 17th floor. You’re not meant to be up here on the 30th,” the black visor making him sound hollow and menacing.

“But I wanted to work here with Susie. She’s my friend,” the reinformation worker protested.

“We’ve had to sweep the entire building to find you or you’d have been reported for Labour-Stealing. Negative 30 Social Credits for being a pain in the arse,” the Status-Warden told her harshly. It wasn’t enough to drop someone from Green to Red but it was close. The girl’s Colour-Bracelet pulsed green for a moment and then switched to yellow as he put the punishment into the Status-Port mounted on his wrist.

“But I need Green Status to work here!” The girl wailed, almost crying.

“Then make sure it’s Green by the morning,” the Status-Warden told her, “your names on The Gate now.”

That was Brian, Alice knew it was Brian.

It was Alice’s turn to be checked as the Status-Warden Brian handed out his punishment. How does Alice fare with her own Status-Warden?