A railroad car clanking along the long tracks in the frozen wasteland of Antarctica opens the dystopian science fiction short story of “The Indebted.” It is perhaps one of the coldest and most disturbing pieces of fiction I have tried to tackle to date. The story is set over a hundred years from the current day. The treaty that has kept Antarctica from being exploited has expired and the world lives on “environmental friendly” energy. However, the hunger for power cannot be fed solely from the power stations around the world, but must rely on power derived from geothermal, wind towers, and solar panels set in the most remote continent.

The world economy has failed and the power companies need employees to work in the frozen conditions. In response, the World Court has redefined its mandate under the United Nations from prosecuting those who commit crimes against humanity to those who have large sums of debit “and thus have caused the collapse of the world economy.” The sentence for this crime is to work the debit off in the debtor camps—set in the harshest environments of the world.

The camps, as Soren Jeager discovers to his horror, are not worker camps but concentration camps where life is frozen, there is no escape, and abuse that would be seen with slavery is heaped upon those who try to survive as they are forced to feed the world the power it hungrily craves. Even upon death, the debtor serves a purpose—for his body is fed into the main incinerator, giving off a little more energy.

In the face of the frozen hearts of the prison guards and overseers, Soren is forced to choose to keep the flame of life burning or to allow himself to become as dead as the surrounding ice.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for the latest updates on blogs, novels, and short stories I am working on.